Last week, veteran Trek designer John Eaves shared some notes on Facebook about the process of designing the USS Enterprise, as seen the in season one finale of Star Trek: Discovery, and how it differed from the concept art seen in the 2019 Star Trek: Ships of The Line Calendar. We reported on Eaves’ description of those differences, however chose not to cover additional comments he made that were outside the bounds of being strictly design notes.

In these comments from Eaves’ now-deleted Facebook post, it was implied that there were legal issues surrounding the use of the classic USS Enterprise design which dictated the changes seen in Star Trek: Discovery. These comments were picked up by some fans and a fewpressoutlets, creating a bit of a controversy. However, the implication that there was some kind of legal requirement to change the USS Enterprise design didn’t seem to fit with what is known about CBS ownership of the Star Trek TV franchise.

The final design of the USS Enterprise in Star Trek: Discovery

Today CBS provided TrekMovie with the following statement to clarify the design decisions:

CBS TV Studios does, in fact, have the right to use the U.S.S. Enterprise ship design from the past TV series, and are not legally required to make changes. The changes in the ship design were creative ones, made to utilize 2018’s VFX technology.

The art that was used in the 2019 calendar is ‘concept art,’ which was completed long before the VFX process is completed.

This clarification fits with comments made by production designer Tamara Deverell and visual effects supervisor Jason Zimmerman at the recent WonderCon Discovery panel, where they talked about how the USS Enterprise was changed to match the aesthetic of the show, and fit with the USS Discovery in terms of size.

Tamara Deverell: For the Enterprise, we based it initially off of The Original Series. We were really drawing a lot of our materials from that. And then we particularly went to more of the Star Trek movies, which is a little bit fatter, a little bit bigger. Overall, I think we expanded the length of it to be within the world of our Discovery, which is bigger, so we did cheat it as a larger ship.

Jason Zimmerman: It starts with them giving us designs to work with and then there is a lot of back and forth between VFX and [Tamra’s] department to make sure that we get everything right. There were a lot of conversations and more emails than I could remember about how the design would evolve and sort of match our universe, and that is how we sort of arrived where we are now.

USS Enterprise was updated to fit with the look, and the size, of the USS Discovery

The producers of Star Trek: Discovery have been consistently clear in saying the show lives firmly inside the canon universe of Star Trek’s prime timeline, set a decade prior to The Original Series. However, this adherence to canon is focused on the story. With regards to the visuals, Discovery has clearly made changes throughout it’s run. Speaking to TrekMovie at the Hollywood premiere, co-creator and executive producer Alex Kurtzman discussed their design approach, saying:

Alex Kurtzman: Obviously [Discovery] looks more modern than The Original Series, because we are in a modern world now and if we made the show look that way people would not feel that it was worth the money. That being said, every prop and costume design is filtered through what existed at the time. And do we create the new version of it or do we augment the original design in very subtle ways or do we just leave it alone? And when I say every prop and design choice I mean every prop and design choice. So, I think you will see a lot of tips of the hat to devices to The Original Series and the timeline. But, obviously we wanted to create a more modern experience and that necessitated certain adjustments.

The changes to the USS Enterprise are no different than other updates we have seen throughout the series from holographic projections, new uniforms, props and yes, even Klingons.

Discovery has been updating the Trek look since episode 1

Star Trek: Discovery is available exclusively in the USA on CBS All Access. It airs in Canada on the Space Channel and streams on CraveTV. It is available on Netflix everywhere else.

Alex Kurtzman: Obviously [Discovery] looks more modern than The Original Series, because we are in a modern world now and if we made the show look that way people would not feel that it was worth the money.

I like how he his assumptions come off like they’re fact. Are today’s audiences really incapable of understanding why things look the way they do? Trek of the past always tried the look and feel of the original series whenever it could, even in Enterprise that also served as a prequel.

April 17, 2018 3:09 pm

Captain Mateo

Visual updates allow for the freedom of a new artists and production crew to do their best work. Trek visually has never been static and keeping, say, the TOS Enterprise the same through the past incarnations is a fact but I think that time is over and I am happy it doesn’t look like Vic’s Trek or Phase II.

April 17, 2018 3:16 pm

Marja

Me too.

April 17, 2018 9:03 pm

Jack

@Captain Ditto. I have no real problems with any of the set or ship designs on the show (and am thrilled they updated the Enterprise, even though the updates are pretty minor). And the things that bug me don’t bug me because they’re different from TOS.

I’d also be fine if Pike etc. were wearing Discovery-era uniforms

April 17, 2018 9:43 pm

BringBackKirkPrime

For those that want the freedom to be more creative, maybe they should create their own series, rather than play in someone else’s sandbox. There was nothing wrong with the look of the Enterprise, and if a writer needs the nacelles to look different to have freedom, that doesn’t say much for the talent of the writer.

April 18, 2018 7:04 am

Bradley1701

I think you are going to find it difficult to find creative talent that wants to work on a production where they are told just to cookie cutout everything from the past, especially on a tv show where they have a high production value and filming 15ish episodes a year. It isn’t the writers who come up with design elements. There is an entire team of set, ship, costume designers that all work together to make what we watch look cohesive and consistent.

TOS is my favourite of the series as that is what I grew up watching (despite being an 80’s kid). That being said, the TOS Enterprise would have stuck out like a sore thumb in the Discovery universe and I’m fine with the minor adjustments they have made to blend it into the Discovery universe.

If you want it to be treated as part of the same universe, you don’t get to act like it gets to have an entirely different visual language for everything. Creating continuity means adhering consistently to what’s been presented, and making sure that changes are explained. It’s in making sure that changes are explained that Discovery has been consistently failing.

April 18, 2018 11:45 am

Doc Zolfer

and i can’t see how they will at this point, not unless Q or some other cosmic entity snaps their fingers and change how everything looks, Klingons grow hair and change their Artistic style, and the Federation’s technology becomes less advanced……..yeah don’t see that happening any time soon.

well in that case, they should have made the show to reflect the TOS design in the first place, in my opinion (which is shared by a lot of people by the way)the real problem lies within the shows design from the start, i would be more than happy to watch a this show if everything looked like a slightly more detailed version of the original series.

May 1, 2018 1:43 pm

Disinvited

Doc Zolfer,

Re: a slightly more detailed version of the original series.

I can’t deny that would have thrilled me, but nether can we deny that time traveling has occurred so much in all the productions since that first series that it allows for changes. In fact I keep wonder if what people are really griping about is they somehow don’t believe Kurtzman can explain all their prime canon apparent discrepancies when all he has to do is have Daniels pop up?:

“DANIELS: We don’t know any more than you do.

ARCHER: I thought you and your colleagues were supposed to be keeping an eye on the time line. You’re from the thirtieth century. Hasn’t all this happened already?

DANIELS: History doesn’t mention anything about a conflict between humans and Xindi.

ARCHER: How could that be?

DANIELS: The events that are taking place are the result of temporal incursions. They are not supposed to be happening.

ARCHER: But they are happening.

DANIELS: Yes, they are, but the outcome hasn’t reached us yet. It takes a while for changes to ripple through the time line.” — Rick Berman & Brannon Braga, ‘Carpenter Street’, ENTERPRISE

And here’s something to ponder: DISCOVERY could be taking place in the delay of a rippling from some distant in time incursion that will restore things your way, eventually. But I wouldn’t hold our breathes.

May 3, 2018 6:44 am

HN4

Sorry but they own the sandbox. Every last sand belongs to CBS and they can do whatever they want with it.

April 18, 2018 7:58 am

Meeee

And when they poop in their own sandbox, kids are less likely to play in it.

Then they’ll have no friends.

April 18, 2018 11:26 am

HN4

Only unreasonable fans are doing the pooping.

April 18, 2018 3:48 pm

Doug

By “unreasonable”, do you mean the fans who have lived with the Original Trek for 50+ years, whom the studios are pissing off by treating this franchise as a cash cow?

Please…educate me. I feel as if I’m missing something important, such as those pissed-off fans’ voices, whom the studios are alienating with these “creative reboots” in their effort to kill off Trek.

April 19, 2018 5:06 pm

HN4

Old people don’t buy stuff. That’s why 18 – 34 is the key demographic for networks.

April 19, 2018 7:12 pm

c d

And that is what it is all about: people buying stuff. They create new versions and new styles and tweak everything so they can sell new junk. If the story is good and the visuals look cool, that great, but not the primary goal: they only serve the primary goal which is to make money.

April 20, 2018 9:53 am

Bob

I’ve bought every Trek episode and movie on DVD. And then bought every special edition Star Trek blu-ray every released. And countless tech manuals, novels, behind the scenes books, etc.

I won’t be buying Discovery. I haven’t even seen the show from Episode 6 onwards. Because I just can’t respect a show that hates the rest of the franchise that much.

April 20, 2018 4:48 pm

Doc Zolfer

I’m 21 years old, and I am a fan of the original series, not crap like discovry.

May 1, 2018 1:51 pm

KyRal

Doof! Checked things lately? Who supports 18-34. We kick them out and they come back!

May 13, 2018 7:39 pm

Doc Zolfer

yeah, the fans that own the litter box. because they have no friends.

May 1, 2018 1:49 pm

Danpaine

…got a chuckle out of that, Meee. Nice.

April 20, 2018 10:27 am

ML31

You know, if they wanted to put a little more effort in they COULD update the look while still maintaining a sense of the TOS production design. Instead they opted to blow up all that came before and do something 100% different. There was absolutely no need to make the wholesale changes they did.

April 18, 2018 10:07 am

DIGINON

To say that their Enterprise is “100% different” is just plain wrong. Everybody who has ever seen the Enterprise will immediately identify the modified design. The essential characteristics are still there even though they tweaked some proportions and details.

April 18, 2018 11:52 am

ML31

I wasn’t talking about the Enterprise. I was talking about the entire aesthtic of the STD. The Enterprise changes to conform with the STD production design actually makes sense.

April 18, 2018 12:42 pm

albatrosity

I dunno. This sounds to me like someone saying that The Dark Knight was a terrible batman movie because it contradicts the canon of the 1960s Adam West in pajamas TV show. Yes, the Dark Knight trilogy was a reboot, and Disco isn’t; fine. But if TDK was just a standalone film, a film that supposedly shared the same canon as the 60s show, would making it be a cosmic crime because the canon and visuals are slightly different? For that matter, what would Shakespeare be like if we were watching it in the late 1500s? It’s like you seem to think the only interpretation of a work is the original interpretation. I say let the writers be writers, and if they want to do a modern cover of a classic song, then let them give it a go.

April 18, 2018 8:34 pm

Fred Javelina

That’s a great analogy.

I grew up on Christopher Reeve’s Superman, so the grimdark interpretation by Zack Snyder seems like a different universe to me (and maybe it is), but who am I to say that there’s only one true interpretation of Superman? What about Smallville (which to me was really Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with superheroes), Superman Returns, Lois and Clark, the Super Friends?

Even when you look at the comics, as years went by, and with different writers and artists, Superman kept changing, yet is always Superman. Superman’s costume evolved, his relationships changed, his code of conduct and sensibilities evolved (of course, the Comics Code Authority had something to do with that).

The Fleischer cartoons had him fighting very offensively stereotypical-looking Japanese spies during WWII, something that just would not fly at all today. Should we hold today’s writers to that standard because it’s “canon”?

Hardly any modern Shakespeare production is done with 15th century clothing, with the audience standing on the ground, lit by candlelight, either.

50 years from now we’ll still be arguing over the accuracy of the Enterprise in some future reboot intended to be beamed directly into our brains… if we’re still around, of course.

April 19, 2018 9:28 am

ML31

Superman is not a good analogy either. Fred. I’m not a comic book guy but I am aware that it is quite common for the books to reboot, restart and change all sorts of things all the time. Often at the same time as there are even multiple books of the same characters every month. STD pretty much is saying we are going to do what comics do. Just start our own thing in that world independent of what came before in our own new version of that world. At least, that is the result we are getting even though those in charge keep saying otherwise.

April 19, 2018 10:42 am

Disinvited

ML31,

Sure it is. Fiction is art.

And to advance it was why copyright originally was only a limited time of around 14 years after which, all where encouraged to change it however they felt to advance the art.

For example, Sherlock Holmes is in the public domain. There exists no entity with canon “authority” over the character and his stories — save only the fans, and then only if they organize into buying blocs who boycott versions that don’t follow their guidelines.

April 20, 2018 1:30 pm

ML31

The only thing I will add to this is that the Sherlock Holmes thing was largely due to Doyle himself not caring what other authors did with the character and the estate honoring that.

April 24, 2018 7:38 am

Disinvited

ML31,

RE: Doyle himself not caring

Pure B.S. If Doyle did not care, the character would have immediately entered the public domain as the old copyright laws (pre-Disney lobby) during his lifetime recognized such abandonment as causing authored works to enter it. Instead, Holmes did not enter the public domain in the UK until 1980 because the author and his heirs did their due diligence as the old copyright law required. And in the US, after Disney rewrote the 1976 Copyright laws allowing for renewal, The Doyle heirs were granted renewal in 1981.

Regardless, the question still remains, which Sherlock Holmes is canon, Ritchie’s movie Holmes, US CBS’ ELEMENTARY Holmes, or BBC TV’s SHERLOCK? And who gets to make the call?

Also, since you brought it up, in regards to STAR TREK canon, when did Ball, Bludhorn, Lansing or Grey ever care?

April 24, 2018 2:18 pm

ML31

I had read, DIS, that Doyle did not care what another author did with his character. Could that info have been wrong? Perhaps. I read about it a couple of decades ago.

I do not recall ever bringing up the names Ball, Bludhorn, Lansing or Grey. So not sure where that came from.

April 24, 2018 3:10 pm

Disinvited

ML31,

Re: Ball, Bludhorn, Lansing or Grey

I believe the point you were attempting to make via Doyle was the canon of STAR TREK was an exceptional and precious thing because the owner “cared.”

Lucille Ball, the original owner of STAR TREK, did not care about its canon. Neither did Charlie Bludhorn who bought it from her. And least of all, Paramount, whose two most noted heads controlling TREK during its long tenure there were Sherry Lansing and Brad Grey, which did not want anything to do with running the still in production 1st television series of STAR TREK, and Bludhorn personally had to order to run it because Paramount cared so little for STAR TREK that it couldn’t care less.

April 25, 2018 11:34 am

ML31

No, Dis. I never went there at all. Obviously the concept of canon on a TV show in the 60’s was never even a thing. The Trek universe evolved over time. As did its canon. Not once did I ever infer or even suggest that the Desilu folks had any kind of deep respect for canon. That’s just folly.

April 26, 2018 8:56 am

Disinvited

Ml31,

Re: I never went there at all.

Well then, your reason for introducing Doyle and his heirs caring or not is lost on me.

When I was watching the first Trek series as it aired in the 60s, the only ones caring and attempting to make sense out of the many incongruous things between episodes were the fans.

Somewhere along the line, apparently, it got usurped by Paramount through some mechanism that I’m not entirely certain about. Because now people are telling me “canon” is something the corporate holders of the STAR TREK “jewels” has been maintaining all along and I find that the most astonishing bunk that I’ve ever heard about STAR TREK’S “canon.”

May 2, 2018 8:26 am

Doc Zolfer

all versions are their own canon, as far as i know, no one has ever claimed that the Basil Rathbone version is in continuity with the Robert Downey Jr version, or that the Ronald Howard version is in the same continuity as the Jeremy Brett version. your argument is baseless in the Star trek debate because what we traditional fans are concerned about has to do with Continuity, not someone else’s version.

May 1, 2018 2:18 pm

Disinvited

Doc Zolfer,

Re: Continuity

But the dramatic arts have various types of continuity and STAR TREK has always focused on its storytelling, first. The look was always secondary. Juxtapose this against its contemporary’s, LOST IN SPACE, priorities where all they cared about was keeping up the look in their sets’ and permanent stage props, and continuity of the narrative between each episode’s narrative be damned.

May 2, 2018 8:09 am

Disinvited

Doc Zolfer,

Re: not someone else’s version.

What are you talking about? Who is this entity that has steadfastly “maintained” STAR TREK as the ONE version of which you speak?

First there was the Ball/Desilu production version. Then she sold it to Bludhorn and then he order his demurring Paramount to produce it which gave us the Paramount produced version. Then Roddenberry decided he had to walk away from the stultifying Paramount producing in the 2nd season which gave us the Freiberger 3rd season version. Then the Wise version, Meyer’s version, etc, etc.

And I know lot of Trek fans who will claim there’s not a lot of continuity between Meyer’s version and the STAR TREK that came before. Gene Roddenberry for one.

Gee, I even recall the knockdown dragout fight between Bjo and Dorothy over the COMPENDIUM.

I certainly hope I’m not exchanging ideas with my contemporaries in my 60s’ decades viewing because I’d hate to think we’ve allowed ourselves to become so maudlin and nostalgic as to ever fool ourselves into believing that it all went down in smooth orderly stormtrooper lockstep.

May 2, 2018 9:11 am

Doc Zolfer

So you are saying that if someone were to make a prequel to Star wars, it alright to make the stormtroopers armor look like weird alien art? or the Ewoks to suddenly have real time hologram devices, and no hair? continuity folks, continuity is the argument here, not reboots.

May 1, 2018 2:11 pm

Disinvited

Doc Zolfer,

Re: Prequel to Episode I

I would be more concerned with the narrative discontinuity in the prequel story of how beings recognizable as Stormtroopers were running around before they were created, than how “off” their armor art looked.

May 2, 2018 7:55 am

Disinvited

ML31,

Re: Superman is not a good analogy either.

Aren’t you forgetting that from the 1st series on STAR TREK has been and is in the comic books?

In fact, the producer of note for the last three movies seemed to indicate that the IDW prequel comics needed to be bought to fully comprehend his canon, as I recall?

May 3, 2018 5:03 am

TokyoGaijin

In a conversation about the design of the enterprise you virtue signal? And you call yourself a Star Trek fan?

What does college professor drivel have to do with recasting Khan or redesigning the Jefferies Enterprise? Nothing!

Please I beg you stop the virtue signaling. All it does is divide everyone and people are getting real sick of it.

April 20, 2018 2:50 am

ML31

The difference is Adam West’s Batman was set in the time it was made. The 60’s. It also carried with it a certain campy tone. Nolan’s Batman trilogy was not only a complete reboot but set in the time IT was made… 00’s. And it was tonally different. If Nolan wanted to do Batman set in the 60’s and claim it was the same world as the Adam West show, then they would need to duplicate the look and feel of that show. They could not claim it was the same as West’s but make it look like it’s the ’00’s. People would see right through that lie. Therefore, Batman is a terrible analogy.

April 19, 2018 10:39 am

albatrosity

Okay but you have to admit that after a certain point the internal logic of Trek begins to fall apart if you allow it to remain entrenched in its increasingly distant televised past. If The Search for Spock is supposed to take place 300 years in our own future, then why are they using 20th century CRT displays? Why do the computer graphics look like they’re from the early 1980s? A show set in the future has to look like it’s in the future, or else the premise itself defies believability. A modern reinterpretation doesn’t take away anything, unless you allow it to. I definitely see your point of course, don’t get me wrong.

April 19, 2018 10:51 pm

ML31

Understood. And I am not arguing against a visual upgrade. What I am arguing against is a visual upgrade that completely invalidates literally EVERYTHING that the fictional world has cemented for that particular time frame. It can be updated but still retain the TOS feel. Albeit, that would mean more work and be a larger task for the design crew of STD. It seems they were more eager to do their own thing than embrace what came before. Which, IMHO, is a disservice to the fans. Who are probably the bulk of CBSAA’s subscribers.

April 20, 2018 7:30 am

Holden

I like Discovery, albatrosity, but it’s the show itself that’s “entrenched in its increasingly distant televised past.” Set the show after TNG and DS9 and all of this nonsense is a moot point.

April 20, 2018 8:17 am

Holden

Yes, the Batman example doesn’t work at all. As ML31 notes, 60s Batman was an ironic take on a character who’d already been around for decades. Not at all what TOS was trying to do at the same time as a sincere attempt at imagining a better future.

But I think the bigger problem here is that Discovery is itself “set in the past,” so to speak. It’s trying to have it both ways–appealing to the nostalgia of the original series, while also trying to claim that things need to change.

I agree with the latter, but a show that’s trying to milk the past for everything its worth instead of embracing the future is going to have trouble in this regard.

April 20, 2018 8:11 am

Disinvited

I’m sorry to have to burst bubbles, but the Adam West 1960s Batman was truer to Bob Kane, who created the character, than any of the other versions that people are waxing nostalgic about.

April 20, 2018 1:13 pm

Doc Zolfer

sure, just say its not the original and we’ll be fine, i don’t care if they reboot the Enterprise or Star Trek in general, just say that it is not the original. while this is just a work of fiction, it only works if you treat it as historical fiction, all trek up till this Discovery has been worked out to fit together, Discovery has gone to far, and now it can never correct that with messing itself up in the process. The Dark Knight works because it is not in the same continuity as any previous incarnation of the character (batman), the whole point of this debate is because the show runners are telling us that this is Prime Canon, while everything we see tells us otherwise.

May 1, 2018 2:01 pm

Disinvited

A tale told between the ripples of time incursions…

May 3, 2018 7:48 am

Doc Zolfer

I agree.

May 1, 2018 1:38 pm

Bob

What a shame, then, that they chose to set the show in an era in which their “best work” looks horribly inappropriate and out of place.

Why not simply set it in the post TNG era where they could have their modern aesthetic? Or hell, simply call it another alternate universe / reboot – it obviously is anyway.

April 20, 2018 4:42 pm

Dr. Image

Exactly.

April 17, 2018 5:13 pm

Captain Ransom

“Obviously [Discovery] looks more modern than The Original Series, because we are in a modern world now and if we made the show look that way people would not feel that it was worth the money.”

I completely agree. I see nothing wrong with the updates. Although, like I mentioned before, I would update my AMT Enterprise model kit like that back in the 70s.

April 17, 2018 5:30 pm

Frank Mondana

“Enterprise” looked more modern than TOS.
Trek is pop culture and a business, not a religion. While sticking to the “Roddenberry Rules” and established visual look may appease the hardcore fans, but speaking as an original old guy TOS fan, that’s stupid. The franchise has to make money and hardcore cannon fans are just a part of the audience. Any entry has to appeal to a far larger audience.
You think miniskirts would be welcome? “Into Darkness” caught hell for a few seconds of Alice Eve in her underwear.

If you’re offended by the changes made, don’t watch.

April 17, 2018 6:29 pm

DataMat

“You think miniskirts would be welcome? “Into Darkness” caught hell for a few seconds of Alice Eve in her underwear.”

That’s rubbish.

The ‘backlash’ on that case was jealous zialots who themselves most likely carry a few pounds more than they really need. I know I do!

April 18, 2018 12:34 am

TUP

No, the backlash was because it was a scene that has zero reason to exist other then to show off Alice Eve’s body for sexual laughs and make a joke of Kirk’s slack-jawed drooling.

In the context of the fictional story, it was a gross portrayal of Kirk.

Even the way they framed the shot and positioned Alice Eve was all about exploiting her body for the brief sexual gratification that comes with looking at her in that way.

Im all for admiring hot women and Alice is gorgeous. And if they wanted to sex up the film, there were way better ways to get her out of her clothes that werent so painfully immature and obvious.

You almost get the impression that the day they filmed that scene was the one day all the writers “happened” to drop by the set.

April 18, 2018 9:05 am

CaffeineDelusions

Also, there is a difference between miniskirts and underwear.

April 18, 2018 11:48 am

Praetor Tal

For the next round of remastering, they should give all the female crew opaque black tights.

April 18, 2018 1:09 pm

Fred Javelina

They had pants in Pike’s day…

April 19, 2018 9:30 am

Praetor Tal

And a reasonable collar.

April 19, 2018 9:38 am

AdAstraPerAspera

Thank you for this comment, Frank. It’s good to see a life long fan capable of accepting change.

April 18, 2018 3:16 am

ML31

While Enterprise looked more modern the design was such that it looked very possible that it could evolve into the TOS design over 100 years later. That is the difference. Perhaps STD should have set their show 150 years after TOS. Then they would have an entirely new sandbox to play in and no one would moan about the different look. Only that bad plot decisions and terrible writing.

April 18, 2018 10:09 am

CaffeineDelusions

Except it doesn’t have 100 years to evolve into the TOS design. It had the TOS design three years earlier (in The Cage), and will be back in the TOS design ten years later (during Kirk’s run on the Enterprise).

April 18, 2018 11:51 am

ML31

Enterprise as in the show “Enterprise” that had Scott Bakula as the lead. Not the Enterprise as appears at the end of S1 of STD.

April 18, 2018 12:43 pm

Carter Dohoney

That’s not the Enterprise that’s relevant to this conversation, is the problem.

April 23, 2018 4:41 pm

ML31

The comment I responded to by Frank referenced the show “Enterprise”. I was continuing the conversation in that direction.

April 24, 2018 7:40 am

Dr Beckett

*comment deleted*

April 18, 2018 1:09 am

AdAstraPerAspera

Hard-core fans such as yourself won’t have a problem. But you can bet everyone outside those subset will have an issue with a tv series that looks archaic and primitive in today’s world.

Why is so difficult for people to understand that?

April 18, 2018 3:15 am

Doc Zolfer

Because we enjoy watching that Archaic and Primitive stuff, which by the way is still better than Discovery.

May 1, 2018 2:28 pm

Disinvited

Doc Zolfer,

Re: Archaic and Primitive stuff

Hold on a sec, some of us were weaned on Saturday morning reruns of the motion picture serials in the days before Saturday cartoons. Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and Commando Cody were fine entertainment while I was toddling around in diapers. And as much as I relish chest dial spinning Commando Cody in his secret identity of Larry Martin [at least that’s my head canon] for introducing me to Nimoy’s Martian in ZOMBIES OF THE STRATOSPHERE, my tastes have matured somewhat towards something with a bit more sophistication.

But I have to admit, you have me ready to go on the prowl for ZotS at my local disc dispensaries.

May 3, 2018 8:37 am

DIGINON

Some people keep pointing to the DS9 episode and the ENT two-parter as “proof” that TOS designs can work today. However, there is a big difference: These were individual one-off episodes that were specifically meant as a throw-back. Trials and Tribble-lations was a fun tribute celebrating the 30th anniversary of the franchise. The ENT episodes were a fun side-trip to the mirror universe that added the Defiant as a bonus. None of these entries were meant as serious episodes. So while this may work in small doses I don’t think that a general audience would take something like that serious if you did a whole show like that today. Yes, some fans would definitely enjoy it but then we’d be in Star Trek Phase 2 or Star Trek Continues territory: with a very small target audience.

April 18, 2018 6:47 am

Doc Zolfer

So are you saying that those episodes are not canon anymore? and by the way, Star trek phase 2 and star trek continues are both fan productions, and (unless its Axanar) don’t get a lot of attention in the first place, now put a big studio in charge of the project and it gets a whole lot of attention. and have you seen Prelude To Axanar? that fan film really shows that a only slightly updated TOS design would have worked.

May 1, 2018 2:39 pm

Wolf

Given in the real world we are moving towards crystals in quantum computing, the big plastic (crystal) buttons do make perfect sense for Duotronic look of the TOS set, but doesn’t mean such a look is outdated. Give the consoles a acrylic shine, add in some CGI holos and the TOS set can retain her classic look and yet be modernized. If anyone doubts me, just look at Orville who is doing just fine with basic wood sets that was inspired by TNG. Simple works!

April 18, 2018 7:20 am

alphantrion

This. In life we tend to always go for the complex solutions, but it has been my experience that most of the times the simplest solution is the best and most creative one. Nowadays, I think creative producers of big properties are forgetting this because of the big budgets they play with, but I still remember Dan Curry’s stories about TNG and how in the earlier years they found simple but clever solutions to their designs and effects.

April 18, 2018 8:38 am

Praetor Tal

The engineering application of Occam’s Razor: “The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.” If you want absolute control over a circuit, your best bet is to use an actual switch. Or you can trust it to a computer. But then you’re relying on the software to be reliable and secure. It’s the exact same argument about voter machines, and the “internet of things” broadly. Say what you will, but the mechanical machines weren’t hackable and they never crashed.

April 19, 2018 9:47 am

Michael Hall

Well, I don’t find the Orville sets very convincing at all, sorry. And based on the TNG aesthetic as they are, they really don’t lend much proof to your notion that the TOS sets could work in a modern context in any case.

Are you serious? TMP is so drastic in it’s visual update it’s sometimes called a soft reboot. Enterprise doesn’t look anything like a prequel to TOS visually. That was one of people’s gripes back then. This Enterprise design directly references the NX. I honestly don’t know what you are complaining about.

April 18, 2018 8:14 am

James

It’s a prequel, set during TOS. But looks nothing like that.

April 18, 2018 9:54 am

CaffeineDelusions

Honestly, I feel that it’s not worth the money explicitly because it’s choosing to ‘reimagine’ the franchise’s visual history rather than remaster it. If you say you’re going to show an iconic ship, don’t show me something BASED ON the iconic ship, show me the ACTUAL iconic ship, looking its best with modern technology.

April 18, 2018 11:39 am

KyRal

Jeyl,Agreed! He assumes as many in his profession, that his audience is stupid.

May 13, 2018 8:08 pm

Tiger2

Alex Kurtzman is also the guy who gave us white Khan and thought no one would notice, just remember that.

But as far as his point about updating the Enterprise, I agree with him on this. It would look VERY out of place compared to the universe Discovery is in. It would look almost awkward. Now of course Discovery is suppose to take place in the TOS universe obviously but I have commented on that one too many times to name. I’ll just leave it at I understand why they changed the Enterprise since they clearly changed everything else at this point and had to make it fit more organically. So I’m good with that.

April 17, 2018 3:22 pm

Meeee

Because we got Mexican Khan and they thought no one would notice.

April 17, 2018 5:19 pm

Marja

Hee-hee!

April 17, 2018 9:03 pm

TUP

What’s funny?

April 18, 2018 6:33 am

Fred Javelina

I understand Kurtzman’s point about not wanting to cast a POC in that role for fear of doing the lazy casting stereotype of Indian actors playing the Generic Middle Eastern Terrorist of the Week (I mean??? it’s not even the same continent), but going for the whitest white guy possible seems like an overcorrection.

By contrast, they cast actual Indian actor Naseruddin Shah as Captain Nemo in LXG, and they undercut any stereotypes by basically making him 19th century Batman, with advanced tech and amazing fighting skills; the production design put Indian elements onto everything he had, including his submarine…

April 19, 2018 9:39 am

Eric Cheung

That wasn’t perfect, but casting a blue-eyed British actor is a step way backwards. Even first choice Benicio Del Toro would have been far better.
When Bollywood is the biggest film industry on Earth, there was no excuse not to cast an English-speaking star from Bollywood ready to break into Hollywood the way Cumberbatch was ready.

Whitewashing in Hollywood is one thing, and something which must be fought at every turn, but whitewashing in Star Trek, the franchise that was celebrated for its relatively subversive diverse casting in the 1960s is painfully outrageous.

April 18, 2018 7:42 am

TUP

Agreed Eric. What they did to the Khan role was despicable and doesnt get the attention it deserves. At best it was racially insensitive (not to mention just creatively stupid). At worst, it was racist.

Bob Orci likes to pop in with remarks, maybe he’d be so kind as to explain why they felt whitewashing Khan was acceptable…

April 18, 2018 11:39 am

albatrosity

preachh

April 18, 2018 8:27 pm

Shadowknight1

Yes, Khan being “white” is such a flipping crime in the 23rd century when plastic surgery would be child’s play.

April 17, 2018 8:50 pm

Disinvited

Shadowknight1,

Re: …when plastic surgery would be child’s play.

Well, the plastic surgeons in the first series did turn a Klingon into a human that couldn’t fool a tribble, and Captain Kirk into a Romulan. Which did make me wonder why Spock never considered Kirk’s reversible ear job for an away mission?

April 17, 2018 11:12 pm

Scratchy

They probably recouped the effects budget of bobbing Kirk’s ears by just giving Spock a watch cap… (That or they were lazy and trying to beat traffic– City OTEOF was the season finale, after all…)

April 18, 2018 7:53 am

Michael Hall

COTEF was the most expensive episode of TOS ever made by far, barring the pilots. It definitely wasn’t done on the cheap.

April 19, 2018 12:49 pm

HN4

Wasn’t much of a reach since TOS Klingons looked like NASCAR fans.

April 18, 2018 8:01 am

TUP

Good point. We should get rid of all non-white character and replace them with white ones because of plastic surgery.

And certainly Khan was so well known, changing his face would be absolutely neccesary lol

April 18, 2018 6:34 am

Eric Cheung

The point is never whether or not it can be justified in-universe, but that someone would even want to justify whitewashing a character of color. There’s simply no excuse for it. Not only are there far more white characters on screen than reflects America, let alone the rest of the world, the characters of color that do get to speak often only get the tiniest of bit parts. Dylan Marron’s Every Single Word series demonstrates this discrepancy by showing that in most of the films he edits, their lines only add up to less than ten minutes in films that run at least 90.

Any time there’s a choice between a white actor and an actor of color, or between any other represented people, especially when everything else is equal, the choice must be to cast the underrepresented to compensate for the broader inequity across the industry.

April 18, 2018 7:47 am

TUP

Very well said Eric.

Too often, some people look at like this, if you have one position to hire for and 2 totally equal candidates but you hire the woman or the POC, they’d say “thats racist, why didnt you hire the white guy?”

The lame excuse to defend the white washing of Khan that Ricardo was Mexican playing a middle easterner is silly. They white washed two ethnicites really. Im sure no one would have objected had they cast an Indian actor. And no one would have objected had they cast a Latino actor (Benicio Del Toro was rumoured).

April 18, 2018 9:02 am

Disinvited

TUP,

Not that I put much stock in such distinctions, besides it could have been just PR fluff to conceal his true ethnicity which could have hindered him in the Hollywood of his youthful prime, but I believe Montalban put out that he was actually descended from European Spaniards which would have made him a Caucasian of immigrant Spaniard descent who was raised Mexican ethnic.

”[from a 1970 Ricardo Montalban interview]”The Spanish-speaking American boy sees Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid wipe out a regiment of Bolivian soldiers. He sees ‘The Wild Bunch’ annihilate the Mexican army. It’s only natural for him to say, ‘Gee, I wish I were an Anglo.”‘

Montalban was no stranger to prejudice. He was born Nov. 25, 1920, in Mexico City, the son of parents who had emigrated from Spain. The boy was brought up to speak the Castilian Spanish of his forebears. To Mexican ears that sounded strange and effeminate, and young Ricardo was jeered by his schoolmates.

His mother also dressed him with old-country formality, and he wore lace collars and short pants “long after my legs had grown long and hairy,” he wrote in his 1980 autobiography, “Reflections: A Life in Two Worlds.”

“It is not easy to grow up in a country that has different customs from your own family’s.”

While driving through Texas with his brother, Montalban recalled seeing a sign on a diner: “No Dogs or Mexicans Allowed.” In Los Angeles, where he attended Fairfax High School, he and a friend were refused entrance to a dance hall because they were Mexicans.” — ‘Actor Ricardo Montalban Dead at 88’; WRC-NBC4, Washington, D.C.; Published at 3:50 AM EDT on Jul 14, 2009

April 18, 2018 4:50 pm

Robo

That’s asinine. You cast the better actor, period. Be for a fair playing field and meritocracy, not reverse racism.

April 18, 2018 12:56 pm

TUP

Reverse racism?

April 19, 2018 9:09 am

Drew Melbourne

You fundamentally don’t understand how casting works. There is no platonic ideal perfect person for any given role. Different actors bring different interpretations that can have their own strengths and weaknesses. Certain roles benefit from getting someone of a particular race/gender/etc. and some benefit from open casting. And of course casting directors also take into consideration things like name recognition, etc. There is no one right answer, but there are totally wrong answers like “You cast the better actor, period.”

April 19, 2018 9:45 am

Fred Javelina

Oh right, because everyone starts out in life at the same level, with the same opportunities, and institutions aren’t completely tilted against you if you’re not of the in-power group. Puh-leeze.

For instance. America. 246 years of slavery (where one group enriched itself from the unpaid labour of another group), then 89 years of segregation (legal structures that keep the former slave group down, even as they are nominally ‘free’, plus a blind eye to lynchings, the burning of Black Wall Street, etc etc), and exactly …64 years since Brown v Board of Education, which started the process of desegregation.

Do you really think in those 64 years, blacks and people of colour in America are now operating on a level playing field, when the white majority benefitted from their being enslaved / kept down for 335 years?

I agree that the original Enterprise would look out of place in the disco visual continuity. Much as I love the original Connie design it would have seemed jarring alongside the design of the discovery that looks more at home alongside the Enterprise E than the original. Kinda makes me wish they’d used a Daedalus class ship for discovery – that woulda made my inner trek nerd very happy!

April 17, 2018 11:33 pm

Tiger2

Exactly. Discovery already looks nothing like it belongs in this period even when you look at the TOS films. It just sticks out like a sore thumb and the other ships like the Shenzen does look a bit more traditional but also clearly updated.

Discovery itself would probably fit better in a post-Voyager setting but I will buy at least its some type of experimental science ship but its still way more advance looking from the original 1701.

April 18, 2018 1:44 am

Spiked Canon

How many federation ships did you see the inside of on TOS?

April 18, 2018 8:02 am

Tiger2

As I also included the TOS films the Discovery just looks waaaay more different and advanced. Look at the bridges and interiors of the ships in Discovery and then look what you got on TOS and the films. It just doesn’t fit and for this reason why I understand they have to change things up. I mean the Shenzhen is suppose to be as old as the 1701 and yet look miles ahead of that ship. We can pull these excuses all day, the reality is the productions were 180 degree different and there is a big gap in both design and materials.

Kurtzman didn’t not think we wouldn’t notice if he made Khan white. He discussed it openly and his reasons were good. You don’t want a South Asian running around as a terrorist blowing up buildings in this political climate. That comes off as even more racist. It was using Khan at all that gave them this unnecessary problem to have to deal with in the first place.

April 18, 2018 8:35 am

Robo

That’s the problem with NuTrek. Afraid to use their canvas to create allegory to the current world, which is what the franchise was built on.

April 18, 2018 12:59 pm

Isabella

So how long will it be before undenialable canon changes are made because we are are in a modern world now and if we wrote the show that way original was people would not feel that it was worth the money?

But don’t worry they will create a new version of the original story or they will be augmenting the original canon in very subtle ways. But you will see a lot of tips of the hat to original story elelements of the original and the timeline.
But obviously they will want to create a more modern experience and that necessitates certain story adjustments.

Just make good new episodes that have a internal logic and tell a story. Stop trying to claim it links to the original when it bloody obvious it does not and more importantly it does not matter that it does not follow the original canon.
They are just making a rod for their own backs by constantly saying it links to the original.
Just write stories that make sense.

April 17, 2018 3:36 pm

Martin

Very well said Isabella. In my opinion they ‘claim links’ and insist it’s Prime Universe because they want the loyal fans to support their production but to visually reboot, say, the Klingons, when they have been pretty consistent since the 1970s Motion Picture – and series have come and gone, and even explained why they looked different in the original series – it’s mind-numbingly insulting to the creative efforts that came before. If it’s a visual reboot, whether a legal thing or a creative whim… it isn’t part of the family of Trek that it pretends to be a part of. It’s a reboot. It’s a re-imagining, stop cosplaying and (to parrot you Isabella) write good episodes that stand on your own creative merits, not pissing on the past.

April 17, 2018 4:04 pm

Isabella

Exactly. It’s a new show with no connections to anything else. Just admit it and own it and write good stories.
The worst aspect is how annoyed people who like discovery get when it’s pointed how the show has nothing in common with the original.
They just get argumentive and insulting while insisting there are no canon contradictions despite every thing being different from tos from the use of cloaks to the federation nearly being destroyed in a kligon federation war (which was never mentioned, funny how something that big slipped everyone’s mind) to the discovery mirror universe making no sense what so ever (if they got future tech from 100 years in the future, why don’t the Terran’s have different ships to the regular discovery reality.).

April 17, 2018 4:30 pm

ThePW

The official explanation still smells like &^%$, no matter how they frame it. Political, not honesty.

~Pensive’s Wetness

April 17, 2018 6:08 pm

Dr C

I interpreted the fact that the mirror ships looked largely the same as “prime” ships to be due to some temporal interference in the “prime” universe. That is, the defiant incident in the MU may be responsible for the look of the MU ships. Therefore in order for ships in “prime” to look like the MU ones there must have been a temporal incursion in the “prime” universe as well. I’m guessing this will be a story line done in the future where they “reconcile” DSC with prime canon (like they’ve been saying they would for ages despite all the visual and characterological reboot evidence to the contrary). So we *are* in the prime *universe* but it looks to me like the timeline has been altered (just like in “yesterday’s Enterprise” – same universe, different history).

April 17, 2018 11:26 pm

Isabella

But then the show does not tie into the original canon.
Different timeline, different reality …..what ever…..who cares.
It’s only a thing because they keep saying it ties into the original canon.

April 18, 2018 3:18 am

Dr C

Fair point – I’m arguing over semantics to try and reconcile DSC in my own head I suppose. FWIW I agree with your original post above – so long as the show is internally consistent, let it be a reboot and have done with it. The visuals and some of the characters have already been rebooted so why not the history?

April 18, 2018 3:46 am

Jack

@Martin Not trying to be a dick, but I really don’t get where you’re coming from.

I couldn’t care less whether it’s a reboot or alternate universe — or neither. I’d rather have this than a pro-version of Star Trek Continues (nothing against them, it’s fun — but not what I want to see in new Trek). I’ve seen those sets and ships already.

Even seeing the TOS Enterprise bridge on TNG, while fun and nostalgic, was completely distracting.

BTW — I wasn’t a big fan of the writing on Discovery. The whole thing feels like a series of stunts without a story behind it. But I was fine with the visuals (especially in the first two episodes).

April 17, 2018 9:50 pm

Spiked Canon

So TAS isn’t trek either because it was a re-imaging?

April 18, 2018 8:07 am

Spiked Canon

anything after the Pilot isn’t Trek because it got a re-imaging

April 18, 2018 8:09 am

Spiked Canon

DSC is a Re-Imaging of Star Trek!!!! This argument is so effing old

April 18, 2018 8:03 am

Andrew SD

Way more interested in current production news and an actual air date for the session 2 premiere.

April 17, 2018 3:41 pm

Martin

There are plenty of those articles. I found this article really interesting and refreshing of TrekMovie.com to looking beyond the surface. I appreciate criticism and questioning the Discovery production makes a lot of NuTrek fans uncomfortable and it was good of you to give it a glance.

April 17, 2018 4:09 pm

Tiger2

YEah we all are. Meanwhile there is at least other news to discuss until then. I mean if they posted no news and just waited for that people would complain about it. Lets just be glad there is ANY news.

April 18, 2018 2:05 am

ANDREW A SKINNER DEMPS

Quite true!

April 18, 2018 6:59 am

Saru

What bugs me is doubling the size.

Stupid choice that has nothing to do with modernization of design.

April 17, 2018 3:43 pm

HN4

Space is big. It’s not like they are going to run out of room to build the ship.

April 17, 2018 6:41 pm

DIGINON

Who said they’ve doubled the size? Anyway, Trek has always cheated with ship sizes to make things look good on screen. The only difference is: Back when they used physical models these weren’t built to the same scale, anyway. So they could scale it however they wanted without anyone knowing. Now that CGI models are built to a real-world scale they actually have to scale up or scale down the size of the models if they want to achieve a certain look on screen.

April 18, 2018 6:58 am

kmart

Disagree. When you’ve got windows on the ship, that gives an idea of size that narrows down how big the vessel is, even for inattentive viewers. Unless otherwise indicated, the average person is going to see a window and not even have to think about it, just automatically assume ‘that is somewhere between the size of a sliding glass door and a picture window.’

This is one of the big problems with the Abrams Tardis ship, where they scaled things up DURING production of the 09. Now small details on ships have been introduced previously — the shape of the E-E hull around the deflector dish changed during production of FC, though I’m pretty sure that in the final film it is consistent, owing to ILM having to go back in and redo the model to match Zimmerman’s inability to build the thing with all the nice curves the model originally had — but doing the whole of the ship that way is a pretty bad giveaway.

And you can’t even complain about the TOS ship being scaled up from CAGE to production, because on CAGE there wasn’t much there that could blow the scale on the model in the first place (I think Datin put those windows in after the second pilot, not sure about that.) So it is Abrams and DSC that are doing the worst offending on this (though I’ll grant ST III & IV both played very fast and loose with the size of the BoP, but that is probably ILM being ILM and not caring about such things, as the ‘continuity is for wussies’ credo I heard voiced from there would indicate.)

April 21, 2018 6:37 am

Martin

It’s great that Trekmovie.com has dedicated an entire article to this topic but a copy of John Eaves’ original Facebook post would have been great. John Eaves isn’t an idiot and it’s not his first time at the rodeo… I put more stock in what he said and deleted than the double-speak from Zimmerman, Deverell and Kurtzman. Their justifications for changing the Enterprise are insulting. The thing about the genuine Prime Universe is that all series after TOS tried their best to build upon what came before and honour the rich tapestry, that continued to grow for 50 years. Then along comes Discovery, selectively visually reboots certain alien races, abandons the episodic format, drenches everything in a demoralising blue tint and teaches us about diversity. DS9 did all this a lot better 25 years ago, and showing a faithful recreation of the Enterprise, perhaps with aztecing and HD surface details, graded in the tedious blue tint and with a bunch of lens flares on it, would have been enough. But no – Discovery is re-inventing the wheel. Everything that came before is embarassing. They will do it better. ‘Hark! They planted a bomb in our planets cave system, let’s call off a war we were winning.’ Truly embarassing. I watch Orange Is The New Black and I care. I watch The Walking Dead and I’m foaming at the mouth in anticipation for the next episode. I watch Game Of Thrones and I escape to a fantasy world and my heart leaps at the twists and turns. I watch Star Trek: Discovery and aside from them disrespecting that 50 year tapestry I love so much, as series go… it’s just not very good.

April 17, 2018 3:57 pm

Isabella

It is a truly terribly written show (as a tv show in general). ☹️
Between it’s bad writing and despite having supposedly a huge budget it’s cgi is pretty poor and almost non-existent.
It was a super disappointing show ☹️☹️☹️

April 17, 2018 4:07 pm

Captain Ransom

Soooo you stopped watching it… right?

April 17, 2018 5:31 pm

Rich

Note necessarily. Sometimes shows are fun to watch because it’s something to complain about. Shows can be entertaining in many ways.

April 17, 2018 6:07 pm

Captain Ransom

Sorry, I can’t relate. If I don’t enjoy a show or if I always find something to complain about… I stop watching because it’s a waste of time. I stopped watching Orville because of that.

April 17, 2018 6:15 pm

Mirror Galt

Specious analogy, obviously Trekkies are going to pay attention to something they love, Star Trek, being used and abused, Ted.

April 17, 2018 7:01 pm

Captain Ransom

I don’t buy it.

April 17, 2018 7:07 pm

Monty

I enjoyed The Orville more than I did Discovery

April 17, 2018 10:04 pm

kitbashcanon

I enjoy Orville a lot, too. Haven’t seen Disco yet, but I will eventually (not biting on CBS all access, not unless I absolutely have to, to see Disco). This Enterprise is mighty fine-looking, stands well, alongside Enterprise 1701A, the best design to-date…a toss-up maybe. The point about modern times making changes necessary is well-taken. Even the name “Enterprise” doesn’t have the meaning it did to kids and adults(who were WWII vets) in the mid-sixties; a time of “can do” spirit inspired by the Kennedys and King. “USS Enterprise 1701” was inspired by the most decorated WWII-era U.S. Navy ship; the aircraft carrier Enterprise (CV-6 I believe). For a brief time, it was our last carrier in the Pacific Fleet to face the hugely successful Imperial Japanese Navy, after losing all the other pre-war carriers in naval battles with the Imperial Japanese Navy, and before all of the “Essex Class” carriers, and escort carriers took-to-sea. These Naval shortages were the main reason the Guadalcanal Campaign took so long. You see, who now-a-days even knows this stuff, or cares? Modern times indeed.

April 18, 2018 9:21 am

ML31

Originally Roddenberry set the show on the USS Yorktown. Not sure why the change, however. Anyone?

I recall reading that the name enterprise had wider appeal than Yorktown. There was some concern too about it being a too Earth centric name

April 18, 2018 6:53 pm

Kitbash canon

See my comment right above yours. “Enterprise” was a very famous name, because of CV-6 in WWII. This fact was well-remembered in the sixties America.Yorktown was one of the five pre-war carriers sunk by the IJN, before the Essex Class carriers were put to sea for WWII. The pacific theatre of war resembles space with the planets being “islands” in the “ocean” of space.

April 19, 2018 1:15 am

ML31

Fair enough that works for you. I, however, am such a Trek fan I will watch all versions of Trek that arrive even if it ends up being garbage. I will continue to watch new episodes with the hope it gets batter. Even if there is, as is the case with STD, no evidence whatsoever it will. That is just fandom. Another example… The baseball team I follow currently sucks. But I’m still watching the games. Hoping they will get better even though there is little reason to believe they will.

April 18, 2018 10:23 am

Praetor Tal

I have said elsewhere, I think “hate-watching” is part of the business model.

April 17, 2018 9:13 pm

Jack

I stopped watching TNG after Season 2 (until I saw, quite by accident, Best of Both Worlds one Friday night). Stopped Voyager after Season 1 and Enterprise midway through 1, checking back in for both occasionally.

(I ended up seeing about 70% of Voyager and 50% of Enterprise).

April 17, 2018 9:55 pm

Tiger2

The only show I ever stopped watching was Enterprise after season one and sadly I now think that was a mistake. So I’m not giving up on another Trek show so easily, especially when it took a decade just to get another show at that.

April 18, 2018 1:48 am

Spiked Canon

I agree I bailed on DS9, Enterprise, and Voyager at some point. But I have gone back and completed DS9. I don’t know how anyone can completely judge DSC after 15 episodes…

April 18, 2018 8:15 am

Isabella

I gave it till the end of season 1. But it never it got any better and my God that finale was terrible and stupid. I have no intention of ever re-watching any episode and I honesty don’t know if I l will watch season 2.
The writing is just so poor.

April 18, 2018 1:05 am

AdAstraPerAspera

Well good for you.

Of course I expect you’ll still post about Season 2 anyway.

April 18, 2018 3:21 am

Isabella

What’s with the snarky comment?
No one forced you to respond to comment. If I decide to watch season 2 and want to post about it I will and there is nothing you can do to stop me.

I gave up on that terrible show that was enterprise after season 1 for nearly 8 years and you know what. Any season of Enterprise even season 1 was better than that appalling season one of discovery.

April 18, 2018 6:21 am

Danpaine

True, Isabella. If anything, Discovery has caused me to go back and revisit Enterprise again. In comparison, it really wasn’t as bad as I thought it was when it aired. Which isn’t saying a whole lot. I’ll watch season two of Discovery, but honestly I’m not expecting much.

April 18, 2018 6:57 am

Spiked Canon

Because Isabella, there are a minority of posters on this site, you included, that seem to thrive on being negative about a show instead of moving on. It doesn’t make sense to continue to bash the show on a fan site to the detriment of those who enjoy it

April 18, 2018 8:17 am

ML31

Because, Spiked, we are all here because we enjoy and/or love Star Trek. We all WANT to see GOOD Trek. Many are amazingly disapointed now that they finally got another series and it turns out it is terrible. The pain is only intensified because we all had to pay EXTRA just for the opportunity to watch it. That said, we are fans and WANT it to get better. So we hard cores will continue to watch with the hope the show will get better. Yet if the show continues to be sub-par, those who see it that way will continue to post their opinions on Star Trek fan boards designed for people to voice their opinions. This is not a site reserved only for those who think STD is gold and should not bear any kind of scrutiny. Remeber… IDIC. Even if you disagree.

April 18, 2018 10:30 am

flodburg

Many = The same dozen people over and over.

April 24, 2018 9:24 am

Isabella

I thought this was a website where people were allowed comment their opinions. My mistake.

I guess negative comments are not allowed.
I should haven checked the terms and conditions of the website.

Oh wait…… Such reasoning about what about kind of comments are allowed on the site make as much sense the writing of discovery .i.e. none.

April 19, 2018 12:11 am

Martin

Hey Captain Ranson… I really find it fascinating – why aren’t Star Trek fans allowed to watch Discovery and be unhappy with it? Why when anyone voices concern anout their beloved franchise they are met with ‘So stop watching it’. What makes you READ the comment in the first place? Then find the need to comment with such defensiveness? What makes you want to shut down an opinion? Why not carry on about your day and if you have so much faith in Discovery, ignore our conversation and carry on past it.

I can watch a Bravo show, Desperate Housewives, and not take it seriously, that’s where I am with Star Trek today. If I want to talk about how badly written it is, then I can. Meanwhile – if you don’t want to hear how bad your favourite show is, avoid the comments section on articles like this.

April 19, 2018 12:51 am

Captain Ransom

Martin,

Why WOULD you watch something you don’t like and constantly complain about? It’s like being in a relationship with someone you don’t like and are constantly criticizing and telling them the should be better.

April 19, 2018 5:39 am

ML31

No Captain, it is like being in a relationship with someone who is really great. Then they take off for a number of years and when they return you are happy as hell she is back. But she’s just not the same. So you are hoping this new change can evolve into something great because she has been great in the past. She deserves that change.

April 19, 2018 10:51 am

Captain Ransom

ML31… She’s back yet you would criticize and put her down at every chance you can get. You don’t like the changes and you will be vocal about it. Does that make you happy? Or does that make you an a-hole for you constant criticism of her? It would seem you don’t want to give her and chance.

April 19, 2018 5:35 pm

ML31

OK. That is where the analogy falls apart. Hence, former relationship is not really a good comparison here.

April 20, 2018 7:33 am

Captain Ransom

The analogy falls apart for you because it didn’t turn out the way you wanted. The analogy fits. Why stay with something that annoys you and bothers you so much? I loved the original MacGyver, tuned in for the reboot. Never watched it after the first episode. Watched the first season of Orville, didn’t enjoy it… won’t turn in for season 2. And won’t be commenting on the articles about Orville.

April 20, 2018 5:47 pm

ML31

The analogy falls apart because at that point it doesn’t fit what it is supposedly being analogous to. BTW.. I liked the old MacGyver show as well. Watched the first three episodes and was annoyed enough to never watch it again. Trek is a different animal. I’m a fan of Trek and will continue to watch even if the show continues to be sub par with the hope it gets good. Just like I will continue to watch my favorite ball club as they continue to lose. Always hoping they will get better. It’s called being a fan.

April 24, 2018 7:45 am

Captain Ransom

Keep making excuses. It’s like voting for your favorite politician time after time yet complain that they are doing a horrible job once they get into office yet say you will vote for them the next time too.

April 24, 2018 5:06 pm

ML31

That’s not a good analogy either. Perhaps that politician you keep voting for you know sucks but is still a better alternative than the opponent. So you take the lesser of two evils. Being a fan for a ball club that continues to lose is probably the best analogy there is. You are a fan so you don’t abandon your team. But you can still complain about how terrible they are.

April 25, 2018 7:35 am

Captain Ransom

In that case, it just makes you a hypocrite.

April 25, 2018 7:46 am

ML31

Your comment, Captain is a non sequitor.

April 26, 2018 8:57 am

Captain Ransom

How so? Because if you support a politian to get elected and once elected, you cut them down at every chance you get because you don’t like their policies yet vote and support them to run again. That is a hypocrite.

April 26, 2018 9:15 am

Monty

I agree. I couldn’t justify paying anymore for a show that seems far removed from it’s roots. So I cancelled after midsdason

April 17, 2018 10:01 pm

AdAstraPerAspera

The answer is simple: if you are so offended by the changes to your precious franchise- find something else to watch. I don’t understand why people who hate Discovery continue to watch it and then post about it endlessly online, attacking anyone who disagrees with them.

April 18, 2018 3:20 am

Captain Ransom

It’s simply for the attention they get when they complain. What I don’t get is why they keep coming back to read and post if they stopped watching the show as they claim.

April 18, 2018 3:59 am

Praetor Tal

This may be a novel idea, but perhaps the critics are more talking to each other–call it commiseration–than trying to convince you. (I’m not sure the reverse is true for the pro-Discovery contingent, but I have no evidence to marshal.) I think the camps have firmly separated and it avails little to engage each other on each and every contrarian point. It also gives license to trollish behavior.

I submit that no one faction own the comments section, whether they’re enthusiastic about the production being treated by the article or not. You need not always agree with each other, but do agree to play nice and share.

April 18, 2018 6:08 am

kmart

Praetor, that’s a good call on your part. On one of the TWIN PEAKS sites, there is a thread dedicated to folks who hated the new last season, who discuss why they hated it and what they hated about it. I only visited a couple of times, but there was some valid discussion buried in there among the really screwy simpleminded snipes.

April 19, 2018 4:44 pm

Praetor Tal

Exactly. If this site were ever to add full-fledged message boards, my advice would be to give dedicated space to the critics and enthusiasts each. As it is, you can intend your comment for one group but get buried by the other group instead. Your audience for each comment is anyone and everyone, each time.

April 19, 2018 4:52 pm

kmart

Well, that TP site must be kind of odd and maybe even picky … the times I went there (to see if everybody else was as blown away by ep 8 – the A-bomb one — as I was, though I actually dug all of the eps and have rewatched the whole of season 3 four times so far), I couldn’t even sign up to post there because they’d disabled that function, and they didn’t respond to inquiries about how to get around that, even when I was trying to let them know about an article I wrote on the show’s cinematography. (btw, this wasn’t the dugpa site, it was the welcome to twin peaks one.)

April 21, 2018 6:28 am

HN4

Loved the last season of Twin Peaks. I would love to see David Lynch direct a Discovery episode.

April 19, 2018 7:14 pm

Hydroxide

You don’t get a lot of things. Such as that if your only “argument” is insulting people, the only one who looks like a fool is you. Given the chance to actually discuss posts on their merit, you instead chose to sling mud and use strawmen, lecturing other people as to their actual intentions and making up statements as to their “claims”.

I’d say the one who craves attention is the one who absolutely has to rail and froth at anyone with the audacity to have an opinion different than his.

April 19, 2018 5:22 pm

Hydroxide

AdAstra

The answer is actually rather simple – people believe Star Trek contributed something valuable that Discovery not only doesn’t, but in part even undermined what the previous series had brought.

What I don’t understand is why people like you consider it such heresy to utter criticism that you launch into holy inquisition mode to silence the infidels and hound them off the premises.

April 19, 2018 5:25 pm

Spiked Canon

and I don’t agree with what you said. Re-imaging is absolutely without a doubt the only way new Trek in the time period they chose could be done.

April 18, 2018 8:13 am

More Troubles More Dribbles

I just feel like it’s a hard-left version of Trek. Dumbed down for the low IQ viewers while the show runners use the beloved franchise as a vehicle to transport their ideological agenda to the rest of us. Star Trek has been hijacked by people who are not creative enough to come up with their own ideas. They have to attach themselves to a franchise that has already made it’s own mark on the world. It doesn’t need tweaking, it doesn’t need changes, all it needs is fresh writers who want ‘To boldly go where no one has gone before!’ Point-blank-period!

April 17, 2018 4:54 pm

albatrosity

“Hard left” that’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard, and I listen to Trump all the time [unfortunately]

April 17, 2018 5:00 pm

kmart

Maybe the poster meant, ‘hard to port’ ?

April 17, 2018 5:22 pm

Kevin Criswell

do what? How is politics in a decision to make the original Enterprise look more futuristic than it did in the 70’s? Your comment makes no sense, but you wanted to spout of about the left somehow so you crammed this nonsensical complaint in the conversation.

April 17, 2018 9:41 pm

More Troubles More Dribbles

Hard left/hard right, my point was that TPTB have made a radical detour from the successful formula that came before. The changes they make are for the sake of change and do nothing to advance the franchise forward. You can only milk a cow so many times, and Hollywood is handicapped by liberal policies that-in case you haven’t noticed- are not exactly in line with middle-America- the heart, soul and backbone of the country. We have a voice too, and it doesn’t like Star Trek being hijacked by hacks who think they know Star Trek, and completely ignore what the fans say. Trek was built to last, so it will survive this re-imagining. But Star Trek does not need another black-eye. The liberals of the 60’s were consummate, imaginative professionals that did not put their own political ideologies first, and were capable of creating movies that could not compare to today’s. Movies like Gone with the wind, The Wizard of Oz, etc. those movies are ancient, and come from a time when Hollywood was fresh with imagination. Those days are over unless we go back to the days when creativity was mostly free of political agenda.

April 17, 2018 10:37 pm

Tiger2

I stopped reading after ‘liberal policies’. I have no idea what any of that have to do with changing the nacelles on a starship. And frankly don’t want to know.

April 18, 2018 1:50 am

Disinvited

More Troubles More Dribbles,

You actually believe that GONE WITH THE WIND and THE WIZARD OF OZ were made by fresh faced young industry professionals that became aging 60s’ liberals???!!!

Victor Fleming was 50 during those productions and never lived to see the 60s nor the 50s for that matter.

April 18, 2018 2:47 am

Disinvited

More Troubles More Dribbles,

Re: … when creativity was mostly free of political agenda

Your notion that the films, GONE WITH THE WIND and THE WIZARD OF OZ, were creatively largely free of the political agenda of those books’ authors is the wackiest notion that I’ve ever heard.

April 18, 2018 4:26 am

kmart

So where would Frankenheimer’s adaptation of THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE Fall on your imagination list, MORE TROUBLES? Or his SECONDS, or SEVEN DAYS IN MAY? Are they too ‘leftward’ to be seen by you as compelling drama with well-executed visuals? Or are they ‘safe’ leftist visions? Forgive me for saying, but the qualifications here sound so subjective and arbitrary, they remind me of the guy I went to high-school with who respected the work of Paul Winfield and Robert Hooks, indicating they were black actors he found ‘safe’ and ‘okay.’ As opposed, I suppose, to the more militant ones.

April 18, 2018 5:29 am

albatrosity

It’s like these people rail against Disco for having some sort of “agenda” but they fail to even identify what that agenda is. What are Discovery’s writers indoctrinating us into believing, exactly? That women can be leaders? That not everyone on a starship is white? Like I’m really confused as to what ideology the so called “heart of America” sees in Disco that is so offensive that people like Dribbles can’t stop complaining about it. Welcome to Trump’s America, everyone.

April 18, 2018 7:47 pm

Tiger2

A black woman is the lead of a show and there are two less white people on the cast vs the last show. So therefore, white genocide.

April 19, 2018 1:45 am

HN4

It’s tRUMP’s aMERICA.

April 19, 2018 8:55 am

Hydroxide

Sorry, More Trouble More Dribbles,
but the one trying the hijacking is you.

Star Trek always was fundamentally political. It was shock full of “political agenda”. From pushing the envelope in “Plato’s Stepchildren” to a clear and obvious political message in “Let that be your last battlefield”. Heck, the concept of IDIC in itself is political.

Roddenberry made his views patently clear, too, stating that humanity needs to relish diversity if it wants to go to the stars.

So I’m afraid, the hack who thinks he knows Star Trek is you.

If Discovery has a problem, then that it turns the core messages of the original series upside down in suggesting we can go on with business as usual for several centuries without major repercussions. If anything, the characters described are not progressive enough.

As for your talking about “Middle America”, that’s precisely the parochialism Star Trek rejected from day one. “Middle America” is not the world. Star Trek had a Russian, an African and a Japanese-American on the bridge crew, the Enterprise-D was commanded by a Frenchman, but you obstinate about “Middle America”.

April 19, 2018 5:34 pm

Jack

It gets dumb here sometimes.

April 17, 2018 9:56 pm

Spiked Canon

wow…um…no

April 18, 2018 8:19 am

ChrisB

“That being said, every prop and costume design is filtered through what existed at the time.”

Especially those uniforms AMIRITE?

April 17, 2018 4:57 pm

TUP

The uniforms seem like reasonable evolutions from Enterprise. Although there doesnt need to be a real evolution anyway as TOS-TMP-WoK didnt exactly look like a natural progression.

April 18, 2018 6:32 am

Carter Dohoney

They are not, however, reasonable evolutions of the uniforms seen in service in The Cage, which continued to be in service during the early episodes of Kirk’s run.

April 23, 2018 4:46 pm

Cervantes

As I thought, the re-design of this ship was in fact a ‘creative choice’ rather than a ‘legal requirement’ after all.

It looks rather good…as an ‘alternate universe’ Enterprise.

But it sure ain’t the good ship Enterprise from the TOS ‘prime universe’, which suits my way of looking at this show.

April 17, 2018 5:03 pm

Captain Ransom

It is the Prime Universe. Please get over it.

April 17, 2018 5:33 pm

Mirror Galt

Fans, and not your corporate edicts, will ultimately determine what it is, Ted.

April 17, 2018 7:06 pm

Captain Ransom

Who are you talking to Galt the Troll? I can’t follow who you are directing you posts to. Who is Ted? No one posting has that name.

April 17, 2018 7:09 pm

AdAstraPerAspera

Don’t engage with him Cap, he’s probably some middle aged man living at home in his parents basement with nothing better to do than troll and make sexist comments about female production staff.

April 18, 2018 3:23 am

TUP

Fans dont dictate that at all.

April 18, 2018 8:51 am

Johnnie Coker Cooper

Well I have a problem you started out On reg TV then you put it on CBS all access TV where everyone has to pay for it if you want to watch it. So where is that being fair.
Johnnie Coker cooper

April 18, 2018 3:29 pm

HN4

Broadcast TV is dying.

April 18, 2018 3:52 pm

TUP

Imagine having to pay for something you want.

April 19, 2018 9:04 am

kmart

Nowadays it sounds very … presidential.

April 19, 2018 4:40 pm

Praetor Tal

Or paying for what you wanted then to now go away!

April 19, 2018 5:02 pm

Dr. Image

Why would John Eaves- a guy who’s who’s worked on Trek for decades- LIE about something like that, publicly? The fact is, he wouldn’t. So I don’t buy it. Any of it. It reeks of damage control. PS- If they stuck to the well-known aesthetic of the established period, they wouldn’t have *had* to change the Enterprise.

April 17, 2018 5:16 pm

kmart

I’ve interviewed Eaves a couple of times and even met him during INSURRECTION, and he seemed a very straight-up guy. Maybe he was misinformed, or the communique came through an intermediary?

April 17, 2018 5:20 pm

Michael Hall

I’m an admirer of Eaves’ work (in spite of the awful aesthetic he contributed to in the Abrams films). Nevertheless, I find the whole notion of a 25% change ratio for legal reasons to be pretty fishy, and for all kinds of reasons.

April 17, 2018 6:25 pm

HN4

He didn’t lie, he was just wrong. He even deleted his post about it. As a rule, never trust facebook.

April 17, 2018 6:45 pm

Kevin Criswell

Do you REALLY want them to stick to the aesthetic of TOS? Lets be honest the interiors of the ship looked awful, does anyone really want them to use that style nom?

April 17, 2018 9:43 pm

Michael Hafer

Honestly, I really liked the JJprise update to the TOS aesthetic.

April 18, 2018 12:47 am

Michael Hall

No worries; if you like it, enjoy. But many of us didn’t.

April 18, 2018 8:26 pm

Tiger2

NO! The main reason I didn’t want a prequel because I was afraid they might turn it into some cringe-worthy nostalgia romp. But once Fuller made clear it would be a very updated show I relaxed. And I generally agree with the updates. Now they probably went TOO FAR in places but what’s funny about the new Enterprise is that sort of how I envisioned the show, ie, changed to feel a more modern look but still feels familiar enough to the original. I think a lot of the Kelvin stuff do that because at least they have the same similar uniforms as TOS.

With Discovery they completely rehauled everything but then try to tell us it all fits canon. Very little about this show fits TOS canon outside of very shallow connections.

April 18, 2018 1:55 am

TUP

I think we can judge better after Season 2. These guys running the show are being very professional but they inherited a concept and designs that were not theirs.

April 18, 2018 8:51 am

HN4

Didn’t Fuller hire them from the start? I’m pretty sure that’s what happened.

April 18, 2018 8:53 am

TUP

I dont recall the order but Fuller was THE showrunner. And now he’s not. And theyve already admitted they changed some of his creative plans.

I recall someone else, maybe one of the designers, saying Fuller had wild ideas and had to be reigned in.

April 18, 2018 11:37 am

HN4

All I know that the people running the show were all working with Fuller before he got fired. CBS never hired anyone to take over for him.

April 18, 2018 3:53 pm

TUP

They made the two head writers the show runners.

But my point about Fuller is, Discovery was his vision. The look of the Klingons, the choice of era it takes place in, the look of the uniforms, design of the ship, war story arc etc. That was all his vision.

So when he left, they could have changed everything but obviously, did not want to delay it even more by starting from scratch.

My impression is these people in charge want to align closer to canon than Fuller did. Its possible Fuller had a larger idea to explain away the changes but we’ll probably never know.

The new people seem to take the position that this is how things were at this time in history and will look closer to TOS as we get closer to TOS

April 19, 2018 9:04 am

AdAstraPerAspera

Apparently there are snowflakes on this site who DO want a rigid 1960s aesthetic. Even in an age where the world looks several magnitudes more advanced.

April 18, 2018 3:24 am

Hydroxide

Just the usual strawmen and insults from someone whose ego can’t suffer that people disagree with him.

If your show is set in the TOS time then yes. It does need to at least reflect the TOS aesthetic. It can be modernized but still needs to be recognizable as the TOS time. Or in this case, Capt. Pikes days.

April 18, 2018 10:38 am

HN4

God no. TOS aesthetics would get the show canceled.

April 18, 2018 3:54 pm

ML31

A lot of things could get the show cancelled. Production design is likely not one of them.

April 19, 2018 10:54 am

HN4

I wouldn’t be watching Discovery if it looked like TOS, and I wouldn’t be alone.

April 19, 2018 4:51 pm

ML31

Maybe not. But if the show was good you would certainly be in the minority.

April 20, 2018 7:38 am

TUP

Clearly not a lie, a misunderstanding. Probably a game of telephone where “change it to make it fit” became “change it due to legal” after going through 50 people down to the designers.

I’ll be pleased on the day Kurtzman is no longer associated with Trek.

April 17, 2018 5:49 pm

HN4

I hope JJ takes over for him. God Bless JJ.

April 17, 2018 6:43 pm

TUP

Wouldnt you rather have someone that likes and understands Trek to take over? Kurtz doesnt drive the creative anyway.

April 18, 2018 6:30 am

HN4

Did a guy that knew nothing about Star Trek make Star Trek 2?

April 18, 2018 8:06 am

TUP

Exception that proves the rule. Meyer immersed himself in Star Trek, studying every episode and previous scripts.

The Bad Robot guys said “Bob says he’s an expert so we just defer to him”. And anyway, Trek sucks and needs to be Star Wars-ified.

Even then, Meyers made a lot of changes. We’re just lucky they were for the better. But to expand on your point, if JJ had been hired to make TMP (or Trek 2, to be fair) and made it just like 2009, we’d have nothing else to compare it to to say its not good.

April 18, 2018 8:40 am

kmart

It was Bennett who watched every ep, Meyer may have watched five or seven, same as Wise. But he had a lot of good material to work with and good instincts, and Bennett to reign him in when he went off (some of the time.)

April 19, 2018 4:39 pm

Dyonesse

Every now and then I’m listening to some comic book artist on Youtube. Recently he has been commenting on contemporary Marvel comics, and how the new leadership is deliberately ruining their old established heroes and pushing them aside to make room in the spotlight for new, “correct” ones; how they are hiring artists and writers based not on their expertise, but on their political affiliations; how those new artists and writers have no respect for the established world and its internal consistency. And the worst thing is, it’s no unfounded babbling – he’s reviewing those comic books on video and they indeed are truly, genuinely, profoundly bad, with childish stories and lazy, low-quality art. It’s like watching a slow-motion train crash – you feel embarrassed for watching, but you just can’t look away.

Might it be the very same thing is being done to Star Trek? I’ve been enjoying the new show myself, but I can’t help but notice the blatant disregard for the original that’s showing up in many aspects of the new show. They don’t treat the original with respect, they treat it with poorly disguised annoyance, as if the show was an elderly rich person and they were eager to get their hands on the inheritance.

And really, I’m growing tired of this “visual update was necessary” justification. What they did to Enterprise goes miles above simple “visual update”. They didn’t even TRY to preserve the semblance of the original… they just bastardized the Probert’s refit and called it a day, as if the original never existed. And even though, aesthetically speaking, the ship doesn’t look bad (especially compared to that abramsverse abomination), those changes are lazy, uninspired and entirely unnecessary.
Where will they stop? What’s next to be tossed into the memory hole? Are we gonna get a bald, magenta-skinned Spock with golden hoop earring in the nose? Because that would be no different from what they did to Enterprise. You know, SHE is an established character too.

April 17, 2018 5:52 pm

The Recursion King

It’s an interesting theory. Assuming it was true… then the question, of course, is why would someone want to do this?

April 18, 2018 4:20 am

TUP

I agree to a degree and think its the fault of the people at the top. It was the same when Paramount hired JJ to make Star Trek and he wanted to “fix” it.

If I interviewed 100 people for the job of running Trek, I’d immediately disregard the folks that think it needs fixing.

Do you think JJ told Kathleen Kennedy that he could fix Star Wars? Nope (although after Rian’s bomb, hopefully he can! lol).

I think thats what excited people about Tarantino’s interest. He has always seemed to love Star Trek for Star Trek.

April 18, 2018 6:29 am

Wildcat30dc

Can we just stick this verbiage on every Discovery article since this issue is settled:

“The producers of Star Trek: Discovery have been consistently clear in saying the show lives firmly inside the canon universe of Star Trek’s prime timeline, set a decade prior to The Original Series.”

April 17, 2018 6:04 pm

Robo

No, because their own storytelling says otherwise.

April 18, 2018 9:47 am

Carter Dohoney

Exactly. I’ll believe it when I see it, and that claim isn’t consistent with what they’re SHOWING us.

April 23, 2018 4:47 pm

dswynne

Then this isn’t the “Prime Timeline”. We’re dealing with the “Discovery Timeline” (or “Disco-verse Timeline”, I guess), which means that we have a third timeline. The difference? More in line with the events of the Prime Timeline.

April 17, 2018 6:10 pm

TUP

Nope, it’s prime.

April 18, 2018 6:27 am

Uilliam

And Early 2000s Battlestar existed within the same timeline as the 70s series, because they had Adama and Apollo and Colonial Vipers and even the theme tune (in the form of the “Colonial Anthem”), right?
;)

April 20, 2018 8:20 pm

Elvis_Shatner

Sigh… I’m glad that STD exists and have enjoyed it so far… BUT… it is not in the Prime Universe.
This is more of the same practice out of Kurtzman’s playbook with Bob Orci:
Boldly ‘reimagine’ what has come before.

No one has criticized Vic and Star Trek Continues for being faithful to the look and feel of TOS.
Rather, the expressions have mainly been that of admiration that they were able to match the look, feel, effects and production quality so closely given the resources they had available.

From the perspective of the Prime universe TNG-era, Enterprise, Discovery and TOS could be considered period pieces. No one has criticized other period productions such as say, Spartacus, Ben Hur, or the Tudors for example, for not ‘modernizing’ their effects and garb for fear of audiences opining that money was not well-spent, or because we now have the technical ability to do so.

In light of other televised Trek productions respecting what came before and building upon it rather than outright changing it, Kurtzman’s assertion is bogus. If he wants to stay inside his comfortable bubble, then that’s fine but he should just stop claiming that his creations are Prime canon, and not worry about having his cake and eating it too…

Kurtzman and others get touchy about it, and end up attacking rather than just letting their show speak for itself. Which, to be fair, it does — it just says things that are in blatant opposition to what the producers say about it. And then x-amount of fans complain about it, and another x-amount of fans defend it.

But the whole thing could have been avoided by simply setting it AFTER the Berman era. You want to do a Klingon war? No problem! Just do a new war and invent a reason for it. Simple.

These idiots painted themselves into a corner and now are trying to get out of it by insisting that there IS no corner. Works on some, I guess; doesn’t work on me. Hopefully that doesn’t make me a gatekeeper to say that, but if so, I’m zen with it.

April 17, 2018 7:07 pm

HN4

@Bryant Burnette
I’ll never agree with that. Star Trek TOS was like the Wild West. You don’t set a show like Star Trek 100 years after the Wild West. That’s what TNG was, and that’s why ST got worse with Voy. (DS9 would have had the same faith if not for B&B being too busy with 7 of 9 bust size.) Enterprise was an attempt to fix the problem, but it was already too late.

Star Trek should have never left the TOS era. That’s pure Trek, setting the show after Voy would just be more of the same dilution of the franchise that kill Trek in the first place.

April 17, 2018 7:52 pm

Bobby

The analogy doesn’t work. The Wild West was 18th century. According to my calendar, that is in the past. Same with Spartacus and all the other historic pieces you mentioned. TOS was 23rd century. To be more specific, it was a creative concept of the 23rd century in the 1960s. Now, 50 years later, we have a very different concept of what 23rd century design might look like.

Since the producers are not attempting to produce a show to air in the 1960s, but a show to air (wait…it doesn’t air anywhere. Stream) for this decade, to try to keep the 1960s image would be truly, horridly backward and totally defy creativity.

If you want to work in a job to hand write scripts and push papers like the 1960s, go for it. Not sure anyone is hiring for that position. But if someone is hiring to do that, you won’t have anyone with any creativity to compete with. You want to hire artists today, you can’t tell them to abandon creativity and lock themselves in a 1960s concept prison.

April 17, 2018 9:14 pm

Disinvited

Bobby,

Re: wait…it doesn’t air anywhere

Well, I wouldn’t advise it, but it can be streamed via Wi-Fi which is broadcast through the air.

April 17, 2018 11:20 pm

Brad

The “Wild West” was actually the 19th Century, but I understand what you’re saying.
I don’t think anyone is expecting to see the 1960’s Enterprise still shot using 1960’s TV technology and effects. But I doubt many people would mind seeing a 1960’s Enterprise shot with our current styles, technology and effects. But to me, the problems with Discovery goes far beyond that. The main problem is the ongoing lie that the show is set in the Prime Universe. It clearly isn’t. Let’s use one example from the very first episode. 3-D ship-to-ship communication. In the Prime universe, that did not exist until about halfway through Deep Space Nine, which is a century after the original series. And while I don’t expect today’s Star Trek writers to have every canon line of dialog completely memorized (even the original series contradicted itself on occasion), how did they miss Spock’s statement in “The Tholian Web” that there had never been a mutiny on a Federation ship in the past? These are only two examples of many (and don’t get me started on the Klingons!).
Oh, it’s true that things have been changed before–such as the design of the Klingons from The Motion Picture onward, which seems to only have been done to say, “Hey, look! We have money now!” At least we got a canon reason for that change many years later.
I could have accepted a few changes to what had been established–but the very fact that they felt the need to change everything is what clearly places Discovery outside of the Prime Universe.

April 18, 2018 4:07 am

ML31

I agree, Brad. The show’s aesthetics are indeed a problem. But the biggest problem (after the useless and dumb plot twists that did nothing but destroy the season) is the producers insistence the show adheres to canon when there are too many instances where it clearly does not. Just because you mention Archer or Pike or even mention Sarek’s strained relationship with his son does not mean everything adheres to canon. (and their portrayal of Sarek itself is questionable).

And then there was the promise that by the end of the season fans will see how everything works out. But wait… No… We will see how it works out in season 2. At this point even if we get an explanation I suspect it will be as baseless as the concept of the Klingons abandoning a war they were clearly going to win just because one person was given the switch to a bomb in their hollow planet.

April 18, 2018 11:03 am

kmart

Bobby,
The Wild West was the 19th century (latter half), not the 18th, and I don’t need a calendar to know that.

The analogy being made does work (and believe me, I’m usually the very last one to take HN4’s side of things, if you look at any thread in which we both posted, there is AMPLE evidence), because the frontier feel of TOS is in the TREK message statement, and that feel is largely absent from most all of what followed in the Berman years and after, even if the mission statement remained largely the same. Probably one reason why I love FIREFLY is that some of that feel is back in there, even if they hit it in awkward and somewhat unconvincing ways.

And describing the 60s-era visual concepts as a prison is dead-end thinking in and of itself. Mid-century design, both practical and extrapolative, was based on tech as well as aesthetic considerations, and created looks that are still with us and will probably continue to survive and prosper, just because they are that damn good, from a sense of practicality and usability and certainly the easy-on-the-eye aspect.

I talked to two production designers that work on Marvel films this week, and both of them still use small physical models for set design presentations rather than rely strictly on computer renderings and virtual walkthroughs … and it is because the approach is still valid, and works for the directors and other personnel who feel the benefit from a practical physical visual representation. The idea that ‘old is bad’ doesn’t hold water if the newer alternatives actually shortchange or limit you, and honestly, except for creature work, I haven’t seen a big visual gain in VFX since the late 90s, which is when miniatures and motion control got discarded, supposedly due to cost.

The ‘classic 23rd century’ line of Dax’s is right on the money — whether they use money or not.

April 18, 2018 5:12 am

ML31

But the problem with STD is it is like the producers wanted a show set in the 1920’s but hired writers and production designers that gave the show a look and feel of a show set in the 1970’s. The audience already knows what the ’20’s look and feel should be. They should work at making the ’20’s seem as realistic and authentic as possible to appeal to a modern audience. Don’t make it look like the 70’s and tell everyone it’s a visual reboot of the 20’s. That’s just insulting.

April 18, 2018 10:55 am

HN4

The only problem with that is that the 1920’s really existed. TOS ST was just a TV show made to sell ads on NBC.

April 18, 2018 3:57 pm

Disinvited

HN4,

Re: made to sell ads

Actually the complete concept, for Roddenberry, was to better do that by getting excellent story concepts that were rejected out of hand from ignorance, and the doubled ignorance of being subservient to bigotry, in HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL and THE LIEUTENANT, past the inertia of the network’s censorship bureaucracy and its inaccurate model of the concepts with which they believed their audiences could not cope.

April 18, 2018 5:49 pm

ML31

That is generically true of everything in media. And really doesn’t address the points I made, HN4. At least at the corporate level. The makers of the show were all out to make the best quality product they possibly could. Also, the way the show evolved it was established that the TOS era looked like what we saw on the 60’s TV show. This has been hammered home in every future incarnation of the show. STD guys came in and changed it all up. So my comment about they tried to make the 20’s look like the 70’s is appropriate.

April 19, 2018 10:58 am

Disinvited

ML31,

Sounds to me as if you are describing FOX’s GOTHAM.

I think the problem is simply people don’t understand how fashion’s designs function in an era, and that its designs don’t go out of date, as in expire and die never to return again, but rather merely out of vogue, as in fail to continue to inspire the next generation who has grown familiar with it growing up in it and seeks something other to inspire, only for it to return after a few cycles to be perfectly acceptable to a newer generation who knows nothing of it and is thrilled by their rediscovery of its charm.

What you propose is sound. If the aesthetic look of 23rd century is presented as retro chic for those living in it, audiences of the now will understand and roll with it, just as they do with GOTHAM.

April 18, 2018 6:23 pm

ML31

I disagree. I think Gotham is being intentional vague on purpose regarding when it is set. That is not the case in STD and it is even harder to do such a thing in future sci-fi especially in a universe where rules and looks have already been established. And gain, I get that they simply cannot just duplicate the look of “The Cage”. It HAS to get upgraded. But it also HAS to look like it also belongs in the time frame they said it does. You can’t put a driver in the Indy cars of 2017 and claim it’s the Indy car of 1967. People SEE the difference and question it.

April 19, 2018 11:02 am

Disinvited

ML31,

Well every time they whip out a Smartphone on Gotham I know exactly what era they are in technologically.

And your 2017/1967 example is non compos mentis because none of the Trek technology that fans are claiming as being out of place have transpired yet in real time, and in the franchise’s timeline, that again hasn’t yet transpired for the audience, they keep time traveling and/or universe hoping rewriting their histories so that it is only through hubris that viewing fans claim they can undo that Gordian Knot of time rewrites and definitively claim what is or isn’t possible at some future Prime date.

I mean forget how the things looks for a moment, how many fans realize the Defiant that advanced the Mirror Universe’s space program did so at a time prior to that of Discovery’s and even if the Defiant’s tech wasn’t advanced one iota by the Empire over the years, it’s still ahead of Discovery’s?

Knowledge, secrets and lies are the currency of political power in the Mirror Universe’s Empire so not hard to see how Mirror Kirk, et all, knew nothing of Prime until the accident, but what’s the real reason Mirror’s military personnel are in Discovery’s Prime? Seems obvious they crossed over looking for more advanced tech procurement. But wouldn’t they have already known that state of Prime’s development from the Defiant’s computer history?

OK, so someone from the Mirror U could be trying to use the Prime universe to acquire more advanced tech by some other means? Well, could Discovery’s very existence be the result of this Mirror person’s goosing Prime’s research resources? Perhaps, manipulating Starfleet and the Federation with strategic Klingon border skirmishes and conflicts? The problem with trying to do research in the Mirror U is all the backstabbing and likelihood if the funded researchers discovers something significant they’ll use it against their “benefactor” and advance themselves.

Anyway my purpose here is just to show how difficult the Gordian Knot is to unravel once Trek introduced time travel and multiple universe hopping. One version of Lazarus, one man, threatened TWO entire universes.

April 20, 2018 12:43 pm

ML31

That’s all well and good, Dis. But first, Gotham never claimed to be in 2012 or 2017 or whatever. It could be recent past or near future. Plus, smartphones aside, they are using comic book tech and diving into the metaphysical. Which also gums up the works. Also, I don’t think it really matters much for that show anyway. That’s not the point and doesn’t play into what’s going on much.

To use your vernacular, the 2017/1967 example is very much ex sana mente. Trek is future fantasy. It doesn’t matter if any of that tech has yet to be invented for real. What matters is Trek over the years created a universe and the rules that govern that universe. Including characters. I do not recall MU’s military personnel in the Prime. Only Lorca. Who says got there by accident. Such an argument is non sequitor. The goings on in the MU do not affect the goings on in the Prime. At least until Lorca got accidentally sent here. And even then it doesn’t follow that changes there represent changes in the Prime.

I will give you that the ease of time travel in Trek creates issues. But that’s as far as I can go. Apart from that, I’m just going with what I know of the era and the characters they are using. Much of which do not match what came before. If they claimed they were in the KU, then all those issues vanish. If they said this was a complete reboot or even reimagining of the TOS era then the issues vanish. But the show runners time and time again have claimed, against all the evidence to the contrary, that this is Prime.

April 20, 2018 1:35 pm

Disinvited

ML31,

Re: Only [Mirror] Lorca

Aren’t you forgetting, Terran Empress Georgiou? And as for what Lorca says, I said “…lies are the currency of political power in the Mirror Universe’s Empire…”

Re: I will give you that the ease of time travel creates issues.

Indeed it does, and my point is ENTERPRISE’s Temporal War combined with all the other Trek series’ Prime time travels, TVH movie, and the TNG movies TWO Prime Temporal Battles has left what the fan’s think they know of the Prime Universe’s established historical timeline in tatters. And THAT’S how DISCOVERY can claim it’s in the Prime Universe but things are different because of all of the ripples of time changing things, a little.

Kirk liked to pretend his time travels didn’t have any serious consequences, but the arrival of the Temporal Prime Directive people later seems to indicate the contrary.

April 21, 2018 1:54 am

ML31

Georgeau: She didn’t come over until the very end of the season. Lorca had been there for quite some time.

Time Travel theory: That’s entirely possible I suppose… If you squint and try and smash your suitcase shut. But it really starts to enter into fan theory territory. Nothing official and the show runners have never even hinted at such a thing. Either way we are left with way too many inconsistencies. Which, and it is worth repeating, would not have been an issue had the show been better than it is.

April 24, 2018 7:53 am

Disinvited

ML31,

Re: fan theory territory.

Which was the origins of Trek Canon, because, as you yourself pointed out, they cared. Ball and Bludhorn certainly didn’t. Paramount didn’t as they most vociferously made Bludhorn aware, when he ordered them to run STAR TREK starting in its 2nd season and as they later offered to sell it to Roddenberry for $157k. Roddenberry DID care but not to the tune of that much.

April 24, 2018 2:43 pm

ML31

I have no idea what you are talking about, Dis.

April 24, 2018 3:12 pm

Disinvited

ML31,

You proposed that the canon of Holmes was not comparable to STAR TREK’s because Doyle didn’t care. I was merely pointing out that despite your being misinformed about Doyle that none of the original owners of TREK cared about its canon.

If Disney hadn’t rewritten the copyright laws, STAR TREK and its canon would have most likely been in the public domain today as there was so little caring over what was perceived by Paramount as worth, at most, only $100k+.

April 25, 2018 12:03 pm

ML31

” I was merely pointing out that despite your being misinformed about Doyle that none of the original owners of TREK cared about its canon.”

Great. But I never made such a claim. Hence, the confusion for what you were talking about.

April 26, 2018 8:59 am

Tiger2

I’m glad Trek left the TOS era. I like TOS but that was for its time. TNG was for another and so on. Thats what I like about Trek, expanding, not stuck in the same mold. Then it would be Star Wars. I like Star Wars but its been decades of the exact same story line. What makes Trek great is that it can live in any time period, any universe and still feel appealing because its story telling is just so much more vast.

And frankly nothing about Discovery feels like its in the 23rd century. You could place it in the 25th century and no one would blink.

April 18, 2018 2:00 am

Danpaine

Exactly, Tiger. Besides what I consider the weak writing thus far, 80% of my problem with the show would go away if it were simply set later in the timeline. Make new stories, new characters, show new civilizations and technology. Don’t ‘borrow’ what was original 50 years ago. It’s leaving a bad taste with me.

April 18, 2018 10:21 am

Disinvited

I think fans have a fundamental misconception of how art functions in stage and television show productions to get the sets, and the props and costumes which fill them made. They are so used to doing the fun game of pretending that STAR TREK actually IS the future, they’ve convinced themselves that all the production drawings were rendered in patent level detail to produce what eventually appears on screen.

The thinking is that if you took only the drawings of Jefferies and Theiss, and handed them to any production crew, past or present, that the end product would always turn out EXACTLY identical to what they came up with at Desilu with assembly line exactitude. I’m sorry to say, “No it wouldn’t.”

If they had handed that same art to their contemporaries, the Robert Kinoshita directed crew over at FOX, something credibly recognizable as Theissian and Jefferiesian would result, but I know from my experiences on the periphery of theater that it would be as “off” as people are complaining about the look of DISCOVERY’s take.

For my money, what they came up with for DISCOVERY’s Enterprise, is far more acceptable than the curvy TNGesque bulbous monstrosity that Bad Robot came up with for their movies, which i felt they hammered home its design aesthetics concerns with the “ample nacelles” line. But I can’t deny that it is recognizable as another take on Jefferies’ art.

April 18, 2018 2:12 am

kmart

Dis,
That’s a very interesting point you make. I think Kinoshita and co would have created something finished and polished (they did have more money, I think), but it still wouldn’t have withstood scrutiny, owing to what I think Justman said was ‘all old submarine parts’ for the detailing.

Even so, I don’t see much TOS in the DISCOVERY interiors at all (and by much, I mean almost nothing at all, outside of general layout) — it’s like somebody took the still very decent TFF/TUC/E-B bridge and just wrecked it with a revolting Abrams overlay, just minus most of the crazed overlighting. I see murk instead of Abrams’ glare, but I don’t see ‘comfortable working space.’

April 18, 2018 5:19 am

TUP

To be honest, you could make the best point ever seen on this site but when you begin by sayinf “it is not Prime”, it doesnt matter. Thats factually incorrect.

Fuller saddled the show with all the issues it has. The team in charge now is doing their best to right the ship. Ill judge them far more harshly on Season 2 than 1 because season 2 is their baby.

April 18, 2018 6:27 am

Michael Hall

TUP,

With all due respect, Fuller didn’t saddle them with the notion of making Gabriel Lorca his own MU evil twin, which turned out to be one of the worst decisions of DSC’s first season IMO. And in all fairness, he gave the show some of its best concepts too. I’d frankly love to see the alternate (mirror?) universe version of it, had he remained in charge, even if there’s really no way to know if it would have been better or not.

April 18, 2018 12:41 pm

HN4

The actor that played him knew Lorca was evil from the start.

April 18, 2018 4:00 pm

kmart

Context of evil counts; if he is this verse’s s31 guy (as Fuller presumably intended), then we have to eat that as ‘ours’ instead of it just being some alt-meanie. W/o that, it doesn’t resonate.

April 18, 2018 4:45 pm

TUP

Sure, but you’re arguing one creative change that you dislike versus the entirety of the concept of Discovery which is what Fuller saddled the new folks with.

They didnt get to revisit the look of the Klingons, the design of the ship, the uniforms or the bulk of the first season story arc, though they admit they made some changes (in fact, it sounds like they shortened the war story in favour of more MU and possibly moved the Sec 31 stuff to Season 2).

Sorry but that’s my personal opinion, if you don’t agree that’s ok also. Thankfully the showrunners of Discovery agree with me. That old thing never looked right to me.

April 17, 2018 7:06 pm

Elvis_Shatner

In that case, I’d bet that you must’ve absolutely LOVED Captain Proton? ;)

April 17, 2018 7:52 pm

Jack

Me neither. But I loved the TMP ship.

April 17, 2018 9:58 pm

HN4

Yes the TMP ship did look much better.

April 18, 2018 8:13 am

TUP

I would argue they dont agree since the ship is basically the same. Just modern and fitting the visuals of Discovery.

April 18, 2018 6:25 am

Michael Hall

Well, your personal opinion frankly comes off as a little silly, considering that you’re lavishing praise on an update that, according to the artists responsible, is at least 75% the same as the original you refer to as a turd. I personally love the original, and don’t really have major issues with the DSC update (unlike the godawful Abrams version)–but, whichever way you slice it, that’s the very definition of trolling.

April 18, 2018 12:50 pm

HN4

I never said the TOS Enterprise was 100% turd. Some of those TOS episodes are pure 100% though.

April 18, 2018 4:02 pm

TUP

Actually you DID say the Enterprise was a turd.

April 19, 2018 8:55 am

HN4

I was trying to be nice.

April 19, 2018 9:38 am

Disinvited

HN4,

Try harder.

April 19, 2018 10:36 am

Michael Hall

Now you’re just trying to be obnoxious. (Good job!)

April 19, 2018 1:09 pm

kmart

Each according to their gifts …

April 19, 2018 4:36 pm

AdAstraPerAspera

Some fans don’t like the TOS design just as some cling to this ridiculous notion that DSC isn’t Prime.

Could HN4 been more eloquent? Absolutely. But don’t accuse him of trolling for having an opinion.

I’m accusing him/her of trolling because every time I see the name, it’s a troll-type comment. Not a good one, either.

April 18, 2018 3:33 am

Tiger2

Sadly have to agree. When people say things like Discovery is the only real Star Trek while they been watching it for decades, its just to get a rise out of people and not trying to have a real conversation.

I have been accused of things here myself but no one can’t say I’m trying to just upset people.

April 18, 2018 4:27 am

kmart

That’s because you at least back up what you say, Tig. It isn’t just a declarative disruptive snipe.

That OTHER kind of post is essentially just a kid running into every game of four-square in the school yard and kicking the ball away while yelling nyah-nyah-nyah, it seems more about ‘look at me’ (probably because he wasn’t picked to play by anyone else) than contributing to the discussion.

April 18, 2018 4:57 am

Tiger2

I appreciate that Kmart! And I know I can get testy but I really do come here to have a conversation and why I fall on both sides of the argument a lot. Because its not all black and white and I accept that.

THe problem with HN4 is he’s not here to discuss anything, just shove his ideas down your throat. And when that doesn’t work, then it just turns into childish responses as you mentioned. Its eye rolling.

I say this a lot but I really wish there was an ignore button here.

April 19, 2018 1:53 am

ML31

“I say this a lot but I really wish there was an ignore button here.”

I wish that too. We finally got an edit button that appears for a short while. Hopefully we can get an ignore, too. That said, I am ignoring a poster every time I see the name. I just skip past it. But it would be easier if there were an ignore feature.

April 19, 2018 11:07 am

Tiger2

Thats true it is easy to just ignore the poster but thats how trolling operates in the first place, they are looking to get a rise out of people and they know someone will eventually bite. I ignore about 80% of what he posts here and even I still respond to a few (and to be fair they are not all trollish, he does have legitimate arguments at times). So yeah it would be easier if there are certain posts we literally can not see. And it would also be easier if a poster you don’t want responding to you to you that you ignore as well.

April 19, 2018 8:40 pm

ML31

My issue is that even though there might be legitimate comments made, if I were to respond with anything but “I completely agree” he would feel obliged to respond and completely misunderstand and/or misrepresent what I wrote. I would feel the need to correct him and things just go downhill from there. I want no part of that anymore. Better to just ignore all the posts.

April 20, 2018 7:45 am

HN4

This is tRUMP aMERICA now.

April 18, 2018 8:41 am

ML31

It is reasonable that there are a number who do not see STD as prime. For example, a tire company can put out official press releases that their tires are red. They can post on the internet saying their tires are red. All involved in the making of those tires in the factory can say the tires are red. But when they are on the shelf and the consumers are looking at them, and see no red whatsoever, it does not matter what the makers say. The consumer sees the result and it is NOT red.

April 18, 2018 11:19 am

TUP

Except it is prime. And Discovery is a TV show not an object. If those red tires only appeared on Television and were red, then they’d be red.

Also, colour is colour. Its not like Discovery which is an era. No one is arguing the visuals look different so your example doesnt make sense.

April 19, 2018 8:57 am

Matt

Care to expound on that statement? Why do you feel that way? Is it because you think the design is clunky? Is it too simple? Or, are you simply making a silly statement because you were bored and had nothing better to do at the time and it sounded funny to you? I’m not attacking, but it’s more conducive to provide some additional information as to why you dislike the design.

April 18, 2018 1:39 am

kmart

If we post a variant on Matt’s comment here after every HN4 one-line dis, it’ll be interesting to see if there are any cogent and/or informative replies.

April 18, 2018 4:59 am

HN4

@Kmart Always leave them wanting more.

April 18, 2018 8:15 am

kmart

You have to contribute something of interest in order to engender that ‘wanting more’ part, and you ain’t up to that, good buddy.

April 18, 2018 4:48 pm

HN4

And yet you keep talking about me. You need to give me up… I’m bad for you.

April 18, 2018 5:29 pm

kmart

Naah, you’re just bad, period. And I’m talking about somebody cluttering up the board, which is a bad thing in general, so please don’t take it as a personal attack. You don’t rate THAT kind of attention.

April 18, 2018 5:51 pm

Mirror Galt

Eaves may not understand the full situation, and it may not be purely a rights issue, but there’s likely something else going on other than just a “creative decision.”

April 17, 2018 7:12 pm

HN4

Why? The old TOS Enterprise doesn’t fit Star Trek any more. It needed to change.

April 17, 2018 7:54 pm

Elvis_Shatner

…In the same way that all of the characters in the recent remake of ‘The Magnificent Seven’ all had body armor and automatic weapons?
Oh, wait….

April 17, 2018 8:02 pm

Disinvited

Elvis_Shatner,

Re: The Magnificent Seven’ all had body armor

Poor choice. THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, itself, was a remake of SEVEN SAMURAI. Samurai are known to use: body armor.

April 17, 2018 8:19 pm

HN4

Never seen the THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, but I have seen SEVEN SAMURAI many times. YOJIMBO is my fav.

April 17, 2018 8:29 pm

Elvis_Shatner

Yep I’m aware of that. Not really relevant though because nobody is claiming that The Magnificent Seven is taking place in Feudal Japan, as far as I can tell…

Also, there are no indications in the recent remake that anything was visually ‘modernized’ just because the production crew had the technical ability to do so.

April 18, 2018 5:07 am

kmart

I tried watching some of it, but musically it was just godawful, and I felt that it was like watching cosplay at times. I’ve seen all the four previous MAG 7s, and BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS too (I like this sub-genre a lot), but I didn’t feel any connection on an emotional level at all, it just all seemed like connect-the-dots. When a new MAG 7 was floated back in the early 90s, I was excited, thinking maybe they’d do something where they had to stave off an attack by the US Cavalry on besieged Indians, so maybe I just had expectations, which are a terrible thing to bring to a remake.

April 18, 2018 5:45 am

Disinvited

Elvis_Shatner,

Re: … recent remake that anything was visually ‘modernized’

It is when you consider that the actual source being visually reconceptualized was feudal Japan and the American Wild West setting was NOT contemporary with it but forward in time after.

April 18, 2018 9:51 am

Elvis_Shatner

Sure. Yet, it was never claimed that the events of The Magnificent Seven were set in Japan during their Feudal Period. The visual setting of the film made that obvious, though to be honest, I haven’t gotten an opinion from Kurtzman about that. :p

Seems to me that our current situation would be akin to claiming that The Magnificent Seven *IS* in fact the Seven Samurai and taking place in Feudal Japan despite the obvious visual differences.

April 18, 2018 6:07 pm

Disinvited

Elvis_Shatner,

Re: …The Magnificent Seven *IS* in fact the Seven Samura…

Now we are getting somewhere, because I bet that’s EXACTLY how the Japanese audiences felt when Denzel’s 7 played there with a Japanese language dialogue audio track.

April 18, 2018 11:32 pm

ML31

Elvis, that is another good analogy. Claiming the Mag 7 was indeed set in Feudal Japan but kept the western setting. Audiences would see right through that lie. If Mag 7 were a 10 episode series run by the STD people I could see them claiming all the perceived inconsistencies would be explained by the end of the season… No wait… They will be explained in season 2. Wait…

April 19, 2018 11:10 am

Billy Posey

Initially, my feeling is to say get over it accept the change. Personally, I love the look. As much as I love the TOS, I’ve always wanted an updated look to the TV show Enterprise. But if I really think about it it’s probably not fair to say that. If they had done a reboot of the TOS and the look of the discovery was the new USS Enterprise I would have been PISSED. I was aleady annoyed with Voyager and stuff after first contact for eliminating the neck and pretty much the saucer.

Anoher examples would be the new Voltron. I loved Voltron growing up. And I think the new show is a good one, but some of the changes bother me. I mean, I know you gotta have an updated look but why did they have to get rid of his crest of the chest, or change the wings to those goofy things?

So, when I look at it like that, saying get over it is a little unfair.

The one thing that about the new voltron that i think is fair not to tolerate is removing Keith as the leader of the voltron force. That’s like making changing Kirk to the navigator and putting Chekov as the captain.

April 17, 2018 8:04 pm

Trek In A Cafe

Let me tell you – Lost in Space took 50 years and now it’s pretty damn good.

April 17, 2018 8:40 pm

Denny C

It is (dare I say) a far better show than Discovery.

April 17, 2018 9:10 pm

Jack

It has actual characters.

April 17, 2018 10:00 pm

Michael Hall

Just watched the first hour and. . . color me not-impressed. But I’ll probably stick with it for another episode or two.

April 18, 2018 3:18 am

kmart

I lasted about eleven or twelve minutes, but honestly, they lost me on the opening shot inside the ship with the card-playing. The sound seemed really bad, couldn’t easily tell what was being said … and by the time they got outside, I didn’t care. Couldn’t believe how quickly it engendered disinterest for us, just felt ‘off’ in all sorts of ways. Then again, never a fan of original series either (except for the robot), though I found the 97 movie fairly watchable, at least the first half.

I will give them points for originality, staging the crash-landing entirely from inside, without even any window views — but in this case, originality without spectacle failed to create suspense, so while there are brownie points involved, there is no merit badge being given for ‘nice-try.’

April 18, 2018 4:52 am

Danpaine

I gave it about 15 minutes and had to turn it off. Typical arrogant, domineering girls/women, the typical emasculated male, Will Robinson is no longer a bright, rational kid. Nice special effects, the rest is junk. Imo.

April 18, 2018 6:50 am

HN4

Wow you really don’t like woman. What happened?

April 18, 2018 8:18 am

Danpaine

You know what, HN4, that’s not what I said at all. I alluded to the opinion they were badly written characters.

Further, 9 out of 10 of your posts are abrasive. I don’t do abrasive. Move along.

April 18, 2018 9:03 am

Michael Hall

Gods, but this oppressed-male shite really gets tiresome.

April 18, 2018 11:26 am

HN4

You must really be pissed about that woman pilot who saved all those people.

April 18, 2018 4:04 pm

Lurker

Actually, Will does have a few problem solving ideas that help “save the day”.

I thought it got better around the 4th and 5th episodes. One too many cliches in each episode though.

April 18, 2018 4:16 pm

Michael Hall

My main issue is that, much like the original LIS pilot, the hour plays out as a series of loosely-structured cliffhangers that in themselves aren’t very interesting. There is some melodrama (the Robinson family was apparently on the verge of imploding before the colonization mission), and I’ll give them some credit for interspersing flashbacks of a not too-imaginative near-future dystopian earth, which at least alleviated the tedium somewhat. And just FYI, I can guarantee that you wouldn’t like the bait-and-switch they played with the robot.

Still, it has some scope and potential. I really like Molly Parker, who did some great work on Six Feet Under and Deadwood back in the day, and that’s reason enough for me to press on a little more.

April 18, 2018 11:40 am

AdAstraPerAspera

It’s bloody dreadful. The two eldest kids are Mary-Sues and both parents are totally unlikable.

April 18, 2018 3:28 am

PhilK

Watched two episodes. This is all opinion, of course, but I found it terribly dull. Not bad by any means, but boring.
If you agree with my assessment, can you tell me when it gets good?
If you disagree and think ep 1&2 are good, then I guess our tastes are too different.

April 18, 2018 12:23 pm

Praetor Tal

Sounds like they’re getting a little defensive. Good. They’ve acted presumptuously and arrogantly and it’s only right they feel some pushback from longtime fans.

April 17, 2018 9:22 pm

alphantrion

Instead of all this creative wrangling and jumping hoops, wouldn’t it have been easier if they had set this story in the future. Then people might have been more reasonable to all the changes, especially the Klingons.

April 17, 2018 9:24 pm

The Weekend Slice

Hi. At least based on what Ted Sullivan replied to me on Twitter, most if not all of the writers would have liked to have made the show NOT be a prequel. I assume, but this was in no way confirmed by anyone, that Fuller drew up a show bible and by the time he left and the new creative leaders came on board the studio was fed up with delays and such and had them stick to the original concept of it being a prequel to TOS so that no more delays for redesign or re-writes would be needed.

My feeling was that Discovery would have worked better if it had been set post DS9 and instead of the Klingons it could have used the Jem’Hadar (just a random thought).

But in the end I do quite like the show and I had a blast watching Season 1.

April 18, 2018 4:42 am

TUP

If that is true (and I suspect it as well), if the writers come up with a way to move the show into the future, thats fine by me. As long as its a good story.

It seems very clear that Fuller was very, very bad for Discovery and saddled the crew with a lot of issues that they have had to defend. They seem eager to move towards a traditional norm for Star Trek.

April 18, 2018 6:24 am

Danpaine

I would totally welcome this crew and ship travelling to the future for the rest of its run, again, given a proper story. The ship Discovery already arguably has the technology. Please, leave the pre-TOS “prime” timeline alone.

April 18, 2018 10:27 am

Michael Hall

Frankly, as a fan the last thing I want is a “traditional norm” for Star Trek. Been there, done that. I want it to join the ranks of modern, long-form prestige television, which is what Discovery promised and (mostly) failed to do, in its first season.

April 18, 2018 1:01 pm

Danpaine

Yes, alphantrion, it certainly would have been much easier. Then, bring on the changes – new Star Trek, new species, new look, and all of past Trek would have remained unaltered.

April 18, 2018 6:47 am

ML31

It would have, Alphantrion. But if the same dumb plot twists and writing remained the show would still be sub par.

April 18, 2018 11:25 am

alphantrion

Agreed, I doubt the writers actually have the creativity to play in a blank canvas, but you never know. I think they should have at least tried.

April 18, 2018 9:27 pm

ML31

I hate to say it but it sorta feels like S1 was them trying their best. I have little hope they will suddenly get better for S2. I’m a fan so I’m going to watch. But I’m not expecting anything good. Just like when I watch my crappy baseball team play. I know they will likely lose but I am holding out illogical hope they won’t.

April 19, 2018 11:14 am

Josiah Rowe

“The producers of Star Trek: Discovery have been consistently clear in saying the show lives firmly inside the canon universe of Star Trek’s prime timeline, set a decade prior to The Original Series. However, this adherence to canon is focused on the story. With regards to the visuals, Discovery has clearly made changes throughout it’s run.”

This is what I’ve been saying for months. In narrative terms, it’s a continuation of what has come before. But in terms of visuals and design elements, it’s a reboot. Some fans say that means Disco is trying to have its cake and eat it too, but I don’t have a problem with it.

April 17, 2018 9:43 pm

Uilliam

Mind you, nBSG had Cylons and being harried and Galactica and Adama and his son Apollo and the survivors of humanity buggering off for Earth.

But nobody was going “Yup this is totes set in the ‘lets do the Star Wars mormons in space Egyptian-greco-roman style 70s vibe’ timeline.”

We could tell it was a reboot, and that didn’t do the show any harm. Andaside from some pissing and moaning about Starbuck being a woman, nobody seemed bothered.

It updated things for the “oh my god terrorists who aren’t afraid to die and are amongst us and worship a weird god!” vibe society was dealing with at the time.

Kinda like sci-fi shows in the cold war used Soviet allegories and told ‘Nam-esque stories.
Aliens was “Mitey American tech is useless to the hoarde of glorioius workers united sneak attacking closely……oh yeah and greed is not *good*.”

Godzilla was a physical representation of “Nukes suck”.

Space Battleship Yamato also had this theme.

April 20, 2018 8:40 pm

Dr C

I’d love it if they released a “transwarping” version of the Enterprise that changed between the TOS version and the DSC version (like the ent-D “all good things” ship I had when I was a wee bairn that changed between galaxy and galaxy-x class). Including pylon wing retraction and viewscreen window blast shield.

I’m kidding of course – I’ll still buy the eaglemoss version of this ship when it appears.

April 17, 2018 11:14 pm

James

So, the shows artists think they can’t use the old designs for legal reasons.

We have a writer who thinks we can’t use anything from any of the movies due to the CBS/Paramount split.

April 18, 2018 12:49 am

TUP

Well, the first never made sense. The second does.

April 18, 2018 6:22 am

Anthony Thompson

“…chose not to cover…”. That sounds like TrekMovie has *chosen* to censor what fans get to read about. We are fragile and gullible, after all, and need to be protected.

April 18, 2018 2:21 am

Tiger2

I think everyone reading this article has heard about the posts that prompt it in the first place. If TM was trying to censor anything, we wouldn’t have read about those posts that people posted on these message boards in the first place. People are always looking to feel slighted on the internet for some reason.

April 18, 2018 3:02 am

TUP

Well the other site did a feature, almost exactly the same as this one so it made sense they’d follow suit, especially since it was just a few days ago that one of the site Admins was debating it with fans.

April 18, 2018 6:22 am

DIGINON

There are all kinds of rumors out there on the internet. Some might be true (or contain some true aspects) while others are just plain fake stories. TrekMovie will always decide which stories they cover and which stories they don’t. In the case of this particular rumor they actually reached out to CBS to confirm whether there was anything to it. That’s what journalism should try to do: Confirm a story before reporting it.

April 18, 2018 7:33 am

Mr. Vulcan

The show runners say this show is in the prime timeline. CBS says it’s in the prime timeline. They own the copyright. So…fact: it’s in the prime timeline. The copyright owners decide what is canon and what is what, not the fans.

It doesn’t matter what any of us think. It doesn’t matter how different visually it looks. If you can’t suspend your disbelief maybe Star Trek never was really your thing. Or maybe you just need to find something else.

Whatever the case stop whining about how different the ship looks and find something to complain about that is actually important. Like how the world leaders are screwing us over by keeping us at war all the time.

April 18, 2018 3:25 am

TUP

Yup. People can debate things but the annoyance is the people that say its not Prime or argue that they tell themselves its not prime. Dont live in denial.

April 18, 2018 6:21 am

Cervantes

Equally, some of us think the claims that Disco can ONLY be thought of as fitting in the TOS ‘prime universe’ as the ‘canon deciders’ assert…is just as annoying and delusional.

So it’s just an individual ‘point-of-view’ thingy I guess.

April 18, 2018 1:45 pm

TUP

The difference is, one is factual and one isnt. Its prime. Period. Unless the writers decide to change that.

April 19, 2018 8:54 am

ML31

That is not entirely correct. Just the word of those making the show does not make it so. What they produce MUST coincide with their comments. Another variation of the analogy I made earlier… Guy opens a widget store (or on line retailer) and says you can get this widget in any color you like. So a customer orders a blue one. It arrives and it’s Orange. The customer complains. It’s not what he was told he would get. Did the proprietor misrepresent? Was the customer wrong for expecting what the store said they would give him? I say the customer has every right to complain when they do not get what they said they would. Some customers might be fine with not getting it. That’s OK too. But it’s not unreasonable for other customers to be annoyed when they did not get what they were told they were getting.

April 18, 2018 11:41 am

TUP

Nope, its Prime. You can’t compare a fictional TV show to a real world product. They could have Kirk walk out and be a gay black woman and as long as they say its prime it is.

April 19, 2018 1:37 pm

Praetor Tal

So let’s say you go to dinner and order the Prime rib. When they bring it out, it turns out to be pork jowls. You say, this is neither ribs nor Prime! And the waiter gets indignant, tells you it’s Prime if the company says it is, and then invokes the first Rule of Acquisition (no refunds!). You may accept the substitution or you can leave, but it remains a substitution.

April 19, 2018 5:11 pm

TUP

Completely irrelevant example.

April 20, 2018 8:49 am

Praetor Tal

Again, reasoning from fiat. Would you care to elaborate on my example’s (metaphor’s) irrelevance?

Or do we just eat your pork jowls saying, “Mm, Prime argument!”

April 20, 2018 9:08 am

Uilliam

Like nBSG was set in the same timeline as the 70s BSG?
;)

April 20, 2018 8:43 pm

Mirror Galt

Good try, Ted. But if there is a big enough fan backlash, things can certainly be decanonized. One recent example would be Lucasfilm jettisoning the concept of midichlorians because a majority of fans disapproved. Corporate fiat only goes so far, Ted. LLAP

April 18, 2018 12:47 pm

Michael Hall

Just curios: why do you insist on presenting an otherwise reasonable argument by framing it as an accusation that those who disagree with you must necessarily be sockpuppets or corporate shills?

April 18, 2018 2:17 pm

BringBackKirkPrime

Not for nothing, but this new design does NOT look more modern. It’s not like we were building actual ships like that in the 1960s. The Enterprise was imagined. And it was amazing.

This is not more modern, it’s just different, and there’s a bit of arrogance on the part of these producers to think that they can improve on the classic Enterprise. If they want to stick with the prime universe, then they should stick to the design.

It’s no different than their stupid looking Klingons.

April 18, 2018 4:05 am

Dr C

There seems to be an element of “the TOS *design* is 50 years old, therefore it’s dated” going on here. I think those two facts are mutually exclusive (I don’t think the TOS design has dated at all). But, I have to admit that given the look of the rest of DSC’s ships, the TOS design of the Enterprise would stick out like a sore thumb. Had it been up to me, the disco herself would have been designed with more of a TOS aesthetic (as would the NX-01 for that matter). But we’ve got a visual reboot on our hands (plus a secondary characterological reboot for some of the people we see in both TOS and DSC) where I don’t think that the old Enterprise wouldn’t look right in this visual continuity. The Jeffries design still looks as futuristic as ever to me, but it’d be like putting her in battlestar galactica (ignore the Easter egg version in the fleet!) or in Star Wars. DSC has way more in common visually with those other franchises than it does with TOS for me. Which is a shame given the last 50 years of canon. But “fresh minds fresh ideas” I suppose…

April 18, 2018 4:13 am

BringBackKirkPrime

That’s not really a fresh idea–if anything, it’s a creative weakness. You have the right idea–Discovery should have been more like the other ships in the TOS era. When DS9 and Enterprise showed a Constitutional Class ship it looked amazing.

April 18, 2018 7:05 am

Dr C

@BringBackKirkPrime Agreed. I still think Defiant looks more advanced than the NX class in Mirror Darkly – but personal preference has a lot to do with this issue it seems! See my essay below explaining my feelings on this haha!

April 18, 2018 9:32 am

TUP

Thats just not true. The original Enterprise was a very nice design, in fact very different from some of the “futuristic” designs of the time. It was grounded in reality but a reality of the 60’s.

Its like taking the coolest TV made in the 60’s and putting it next to your LED flat screen. Picture quality aside, the 60’s TV might look retro futuristic cool, but its not how TV’s would be designed in the future.

But mostly, once Enterprise and the films came along, they created a new norm for ship designs. If you made Discovery look like TOS, that’s not blending in..because TOS is the one brief period in Trekdom that doesnt look like it belongs between Franklin and Enterprise-E.

April 18, 2018 6:20 am

Dr C

@TUP aye, and if my grandmother had wheels she’d be a wagon…

Just kidding!!! I see where you’re coming from, but I don’t agree that the original Enterprise design is dated. This is just my opinion obviously- and I’m not going to tell you your interpretation is wrong (I’ll leave the thought policing to section 31…), I just don’t buy into the idea that just because the Enterprise design is 50 years old that automatically makes it dated. But “as we say on earth, c’est la vie” (I love Star Trek III). Apparently there are people who hate the Enterprise D design where I think it’s the best ship ever shown on screen (4 foot model notwithstanding), but such is personal taste.

I don’t agree with your 60s tv analogy though – they weren’t trying to project 300 years in the future with tv designs back then… they *were* trying to project forward with the Enterprise and I still think the Jeffries design looks futuristic, despite the age of her design. BUT, the Star Trek show *I* would have made wouldn’t have done a fraction as well as DSC has because I *would* have nitpicked canon and come up with stories to address discrepancies- and everyone would have hated it…!

Ultimately this whole debate is moot – the DSC Enterprise is the new design in canon (whatever that may mean in the discoverse) and I have to live with that. If the Enterprise is a character from the show, she’s now being played by a new actress – like Zoe Saldana. That’s right. I anthropomorphised the Enterprise. I went there XD

April 18, 2018 9:29 am

TUP

True, but the 60’s had lots of retro futuristic designs and the Enterprise is a good example of that in many ways. Rounded edges were futuristic. A giant satellite dish etc.

I think if you created a brand new TV show today and it looked just like TOS, people wouldn’t really think twice. But TOS has often been held up as this incredible predictor of future tech and I think the TV people sometimes embrace that idea a bit too much.

So in comparison, today’s show has to predict what tech will be like 300 years from 2018 instead of 1968

April 18, 2018 11:33 am

Dr C

Oh I agree with you there. I understand *why* DSC has to look how it does – I just wish it didn’t *have* to be like that is all. Some creative writing or exploration of the effects of the eugenics wars and/or WWIII on what technology looks like (explaining 23rd century tube circuits…) would have been compelling to me. Like the “no networks” caveat on BSG explaining why galactica was low tech etc. But classic Trek ain’t cool for modern TV and sadly Star Trek isn’t ever going to be as cool as Star Wars not even with all the Michael Burnhams in the multiverse… Thing is I could forgive all the visual reboot stuff if the story had grabbed me but DSC just didn’t do anything for me in season one. I enjoyed “magic” and the pahvo episode, and I liked Saru, Stamets, Culber and Tilly, but the rest just left me cold (or worse, annoyed). I vehemently dislike Michael. I can’t relate to her at all. Lorca seemed like he was going to be really interesting but then the “reveal” turned him into Mirror Garak (described by Andrew Robinson as “a dumb bad guy”), AshVoq was a great idea but poorly executed, and the rest of the crew didn’t get nearly enough screen time for me to even learn their names. I want the warm familiar fuzzy feeling I get from the Orville… or to be sucked into the story like I was with BSG. The weird thing is if DSC *had* been like the Orville I’d be complaining it was too similar to TNG or VOY or whatever. I’m hoping season 2 of DSC has a stronger (and slower paced) story. The visual stuff won’t matter one jot to me if it’s entertaining! :) Trekkers, amirite?

Plus I must win some more points for my Enterprise = Zoe Saldana analogy…!

April 18, 2018 3:17 pm

ML31

“The visual stuff won’t matter one jot to me if it’s entertaining!”

That has been my take from the beginning. Although, I would like for it to line up better visually but if the show is good then it would matter a TON less.

April 19, 2018 11:18 am

TUP

Since the show is good, it IS easy to overlook things. No show is perfect and we can’t expect 15 million Trek fans to all agree that every second that airs is exactly as we’d want it to be.

April 19, 2018 1:36 pm

chris-leo

I don’t envy these ‘Discovery’ producers, who must be real people pleasers. The ‘creative decisions’ I see seem to involve navigating a new series around pleasing conflicting masters. The show couldn’t have been post-Voyager: too unfamiliar, too much new life and much new civilizations. It had to feel like familiar ole’ Trek, I guess. So, we’re back to retro-future past again. But, it can’t look mid-century retro: non-Trek purists wouldn’t get it (they think). Besides, there are legal problems with designs and with which company gets to sell which props, costumes, and models (…sorry, gang…not totally buying the company line. Nobody made up that 20% figure…).

Then, it can’t quite be set in its own storyline, somewhere in the same vast universe of Star Fleet. Oh no!! Discovery feels this pathological need to pay fanservice like a Star Wars movie, as if to keep yelling, “See? See? I’m really Star Trek!!” We get Sarek, Spock’s sister, Amanda, Harry Mudd, tribbles, Gorn skeletons, Klingons, the mean Mirror Universe. We’ve gotten more Easter eggs than the White House lawn roll. And just when it all seemed self-contained enough, like a secret lost history – without too many direct visual comparisons to TOS, they do the Hail Mary pass of all fan-ass-kissing. Before you can say Eames chairs, goodneck monitors, hand lasers, and ribbed velour turtlenecks, here comes Captain Pike and the USS Enterprise – and it’s treated by the characters as if the Discovery crew were fans of the original series. But with this pandering series, it could be the Talosians throwing them an illusion. After all they’re good for fake distress signals.

April 18, 2018 4:32 am

kmart

And triggering death penalties!

Actually, this whole series being a Talosian illusion would, while reeking of ST ELSEWHERE, also be an eventual justification for the Talos death penalty — more of one that what we see in THE MENAGERIE, anyway. The idea that it took two encounters with them to be enough to create the death penalty general order makes a little more sense to me. Or if you wanted a different species, it could be Thasians, who can do some pretty fancy stuff too.

None of this would be as satisfying as having DS9 with an older Benny Sisko walking off an early 1970s Paramount studio lot, with a first draft of DEEP SPACE NINE – THE MOTION PICTURE under his arm, but it might offset SOME negative feelings about s1.

April 18, 2018 4:45 am

odradek

“None of this would be as satisfying as having DS9 with an older Benny Sisko walking off an early 1970s Paramount studio lot, with a first draft of DEEP SPACE NINE – THE MOTION PICTURE under his arm, but it might offset SOME negative feelings about s1.”

—

I guess you meant Benny Russell?!?

April 18, 2018 6:40 am

kmart

yep, totally blew that, sorry.

April 18, 2018 6:45 am

TUP

I think the issue is you had Fuller who came in with a million ideas to revamp Star Trek. Which is the best reason for why he should never have been hired in the first place.

So you had a half baked series dropped in the laps of the new folks and they have been trying to steer the show back towards “normal”.

Why Sarek?
Why not have Burnham complain to Tilly one evening about her annoying younger brother, Tuvok….if they really needed to sync old and new series up.

April 20, 2018 8:51 pm

Brian

Rogue One was made recently but it balanced the modern world with the fictional Star Wars world based on the time the story took place and it looked like it was done well so to argue that we are in a modern world now is a poor excuse.

I still feel like they could have based this entire story during a time after Nemesis, whether close or further in the future to it and goes something like this:

With the Romulans interested in talking peace the Federation sent the Titan to Romulus and things went positively well however this new found relationship between the Romulan Empire and the Federation has strained things with the Klingons and once again as tensions rise The Klingons refuse to co-operate and eventually leads to them breaking all relations with the humans for several years. At some point in the Early 2400s a convoy of ships arrives at Qo’Nos full of (ancient – dating back to before Kahless) Klingons (new design) who claim they have returned from a centuries long journey and are disgusted at what their world has been infested with (TMP/TNG/DS9/VOY Design). These new Klingons claim to be the Purest form of their race and the human augment manipulation of the 22nd Century and subsequent evolution has tainted their blood lines and declare they will do anything to cleanse the empire.

As the Federation learns of this they feel they need to stick their nose in the Klingon’s business because there is no telling how ruthless these “new” klingons are and what that could mean to the Alpha and Beta Quadrants. Obviously with the Klingons they know being at odds they, their “help” isn’t well received and the story goes from there.

This solves everything that’s been screwed with:

Technology – spore drive was never ever discussed, not even when Transwarp was being tested. So, there is no concern about Starfleet discovering this new propulsion tech. The 2400s could be an era where Starfleet is going through a bit of a retro phase. Bringing back the more pistol type Phaser (ergonomics) and Designs like the Discovery and Enterprise.

Storyline – They’re not stuck trying to shoe horn things in. And I still think the whole Burnham being Spock’s adopted sister is dumb and unnecessary. Could have been any Vulcan family.

On a side note, don’t get me wrong. I love the redesign of the Enterprise. Thats what I wanted the JJ Enterprise to look like. It’s fantastic looking but even still they’ve cheated a bit too much by changing it.

April 18, 2018 4:54 am

TUP

The Star Wars argument doesnt hold water because A New Hope didnt use effects from a TV show in the 60’s. Its that simple.

April 18, 2018 6:15 am

Michael Hall

Ye gods, but I hate that STAR WARS argument, which is endlessly repeated on these forums in spite of the fact that it relates to the challenges of visually updating TOS in no way whatsoever.

April 18, 2018 3:52 pm

Eric Cheung

Any Star Trek show, whether it’s a prequel to TOS or a sequel to VOY, must adjust to the real-world history that happens in the intervening years, as well as the realities of production techniques. Even if a show takes place after VOY, it’ll still mean that TOS will have looked totally different, even if we don’t see it.

Star Wars takes place in a galaxy far far away, completely removed from any sense of time relative to our own world (the “long time ago” thing is meaningless there).

Since TOS designs were based on real-world military aesthetics and function over form design philosophies, it wouldn’t entirely make sense for anything from the Trek timeline to look like what the 1960s thought would fit that mandate. Beyond a general sense that repairs should be done from inside the ship, necessitating a relatively smooth hull (but not necessarily negating surface detailing seen in Starfleet ships from TMP right up to DSC), the interiors would certainly have to be radically different, and I expect as much when and if we see inside the Enterprise.

April 18, 2018 7:14 am

The Weekend Slice

I’m a long time Trek fan. I get the anger at some of the changes being made, but I for one don’t have an issue with the ship design, etc. Sure, it’s more of a sequel to ENT than a prequel to TOS visually, but that’s fine to me. The only times we had visual consistency in the franchise was when shows were made close to each other and even then it was not 100%. TAS changed quite a few things from TOS and introduced tech and species that were never seen again in the franchise. TMP changed almost everything compared to TOS except for the general outline of things. WOK changed everything from TMP again. In fact I would argue that the changes TMP made to the visual and story elements from TOS are no different from the changes Discovery made to the TOS/franchise. Klingon redesign without an explanation? Check. Ship redesign? Check (they called it a refit, but…come on, the engine room for one is a completely different design, the corridors are a complete overhaul, etc). Visual changes that made the interior of the Enterprise to look bigger than before? Check. Character changes that go against details from the previously established lore? Both TMP and Khan – check and check. I am not pointing at specific things, but the general approach to the visual design of things. Outside of TNG, DS9 and VOY which were quite consistent (and even then, uniform redesign for a different look? Check. Multiple uniform variants in use at the same time? Check. Technology redesigned as the budget and resources got bigger? Check.) there is no “to the detail” visual consistency in Trek. NX-01 looking more like Voyager than the Khan Reliant (similar visual structure)? Check. Star Wars is easy to keep within the same visual continuity because it’s Sci-fi Fantasy. None of the tech is…explainable and realistic. They never designed Wars to be “mankind in the future”. Trek did. TOS changed the landscape of modern tech to the point where the communicator from it looks ancient compared to a modern smartphone/tablet. Even the PADDs from the TNG era are ancient now. Not to mention the computer displays. Hey, it’s the future, but we’re still using CRTs! Trek had to update visually for it to work for a modern audience because the core concept within Trek visuals is “mankind in the future”. The tech has to be advanced and futuristic otherwise the audience at large would not take it seriously. But I do wish they would have chosen a design direction closer to what the Kelvin movies had (not in all aspects) or to what the first episode of Black Mirror Season 4 had for its ship from that episode (a bit more restrained though, not identical). I hope that for the Enterprise bridge in Season 2 they go with something like this: http://thehightechhippie.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/1515191216_397_Black-Mirror-Season-4-Episode-1-039USS-Callister039-Shows-How-Technology-Enables-Creeps.jpg BUT I will be fine if they don’t as long as they nail the story and characters and in Season 1 there were a lot of great character moments and side stories (I agree with the whole Klingon war thing being mishandled and more of a background story than a main one). What hurts Discovery was the decision to make it a prequel. At least based on what Ted Sullivan replied to me on Twitter, most if not all of the writers would have liked to have made the show NOT be a prequel. I assume, but this was in no way confirmed by anyone, that Fuller drew up a show bible and by the time he left and the new creative leaders came on board the studio was fed up with delays and such and had them stick to the original concept of it being a prequel to TOS so that no more delays for redesign or re-writes would be needed. My feeling was that Discovery would have worked better if it had been set post DS9 and instead of the Klingons it could have used the Jem’Hadar (just a random thought). But in the end, this first season of Discovery was one of the best first seasons Trek has ever released (IN MY VIEW). And I enjoyed watching Season 1 and I am looking forward to Season 2. And yes, I can still love any other previous incarnation of Trek AND Discovery and meld them together into one universe even if they look different. Heck, I still choose to ignore Into Darkness (my least favorite Trek thing ever) and thus (minus the “Vulcan is gone” part) can watch Trek 2009 and Beyond as more TOS era adventures without feeling they don’t meld with the original TOS show and movies. That’s how I work. My hope is people will become more willing to accept and move past the differences… Read more »

April 18, 2018 5:08 am

Zaphod

When does The Orville return?

April 18, 2018 6:11 am

PEB

I’m genuinely sorry for those who can’t wrap their head around the fact that this show has a more modern design aesthetic. I honestly wouldn’t have minded if Enterprise had taken the lead on this because for it being a prequel, everything still looked more advanced than TOS designs. Anyway, there’s so much past Trek for those to enjoy who just can’t get into what Discovery is offering. I personally look at that image of the Enterprise and fall in love all over again just like I did with the original design. Keep moving forward team!

April 18, 2018 6:23 am

James

Here are some of the relevant comments from Facebook.

“Gabriel Charles Koerner John Eaves, was the “25 percent difference” mandate creative or legal?”
Scott Schneider Legal.
“Gabriel Charles Koerner Scott, fascinating. I’d heard this before. Which seems very odd to me, as I would assume CBS owned all legacy Trek assets carte blanche, except the Kelvin timeline films, whose merch still goes through CBS…”
John Eaves after Enterprise properties of Star Trek, ownership changed hands and was devided so what was able to cross show VS tV up to that point changed and a lot of the cross over was no longer allowed. That is why when JJ’s movie came along everything had to be different. the alternate universe concept was what really made that movie happen in a way as to not cross the new boundries and give Trek a new footing to continue.

“Scott Schneider Alex Rosenzweig and the 25% is typically the number used when making one product similar to another. It must be at least 25% different in order to avoid copyright infringement. This is common with many products. Ive also come up against this in the past when using inspiration from other ideas that were copyrighted. In fact back on coneheads we used Libbius woods designs for Remulak and production was threatened with a lawsuit because it was too close and we had to change the models “20-25% ” to avoid a lawsuit. This is nothing new or exclusive to trek.”

“Gabriel Charles Koerner Man, its just baffling, considering that CBS can sell the original Constitution Class design in form of toys, model kits, all manners of licensed merch… but it can’t be included in new Trek TV productions?”

“John Eaves Samuel Cockings your asking the wrong guy. I only know there is a division of property and when the task at hand asks for 25% changes or a whole new design I know that what ever it is is not allowed to be used”

“John Eaves after Enterprise properties of Star Trek, ownership changed hands and was devided so what was able to cross show VS tV up to that point changed and a lot of the cross over was no longer allowed. That is why when JJ’s movie came along everything had to be different. the alternate universe concept was what really made that movie happen in a way as to not cross the new boundries and give Trek a new footing to continue.”

April 18, 2018 6:28 am

Danpaine

“Overall, I think we expanded the length of it (Enterprise) to be within the world of our Discovery, which is bigger, so we did cheat it as a larger ship.”

Pretty simple, Deverell said it herself. The Enterprise is a larger ship. Therefore, not the same ship we know from the past. What, they make it SMALLER in less than 10 years for TOS?

“…within the world of OUR Discovery…” Thus, confirming it’s a different world (and I’ll insert ‘universe’ here). The rest is backtracking and smoke and mirrors, imo.

April 18, 2018 7:04 am

TUP

Again, it’s Prime.

April 18, 2018 8:35 am

James

The creators tell us it’s prime. When it’s established one way or another on screen, then it’s canonically prime.

April 18, 2018 9:52 am

James

Hell, Roddenberry said that V was apocryphal. But it doesn’t matter what the writers or even creator says. It’s what is on screen that counts.

April 18, 2018 10:10 am

TUP

No, its Prime until something on screen tells us other wise. If not, we have an awful lot of episodes of Star Trek that arent canonically prime…

April 18, 2018 11:29 am

James

I think its valid to argue either way – you can say its prime until something tells us otherwise.

Don’t we know that TNG is prime, because it ties so well to TOS – there is Generations that ties those series together. DS9 likewise has a crossover episode and Voyager is seen in Caretaker and Janeway in TNG. Its all woven together nicely.

With Enterprise, things get a little caca, especially if you buy into the argument that First Contact started a new timeline. But I don’t subscribe to this one. For me, Enterprise suffers badly from having to be a prequel.

Now, I like DSC – really I do. I can even appreciate the merits of the redesigned Enterprise. I simply have a hard time acknowledging it as Prime. I mean, the Klingons have to change, the Enterprise has to shrink – but more importantly, some characters have to change. Its hard to reconcile Harry Mudd with the TOS character. Worse is Sarek, the peace loving Vulcan is a war monger in DSC.

I also know what people say: its just a TV show.

April 18, 2018 1:42 pm

Michael Hall

In the end, my “head-canon” is what counts, seeing that it’s just a TV/Movie franchise, and not Holy Writ.

April 18, 2018 3:54 pm

Tiger2

Honestly I think your points are valid James. For *me* I take the writers at their word and its in the prime universe but I think we can ALL agree if they said it took place in a different universe than many of its problems would go away tomorrow. Not all of it, but a lot. And this is the problem they are going to continue discussing until they can either reconcile it better bringing it closer to TOS (which they say they will) or they come up with an in-universe explanation of why it looks so different. And I don’t see the latter happening, which a lot of people did see as a possibility.

I’m not going to repeat what I always repeat in this part of the argument but frankly I’m just STUNNED they really didn’t seem to understand how this would bother a lot of fans and now there are constant articles of them defending their choices. Put it someplace else OR just tie it closer to TOS at least and these arguments will eventually go away.

April 19, 2018 2:02 am

ML31

” I’m just STUNNED they really didn’t seem to understand how this would bother a lot of fans and now there are constant articles of them defending their choices. ”

That is not so stunning to me because it tells me those running the show have little idea about what Star Trek is. They may have a loose idea… Starship. Sci-Fi space stuff. Klingons. Spock. But that is as far as it seems to go. It seems they REALLY wanted to do their own thing but were stuck with the Star Trek world to do it in. It’s just more evidence that CBS has no idea what it has with Star Trek.

April 19, 2018 11:24 am

TUP

It doesnt bother a lot of fans and their defense is answering questions they are asked.

April 19, 2018 1:31 pm

Tiger2

But thats the point, the fact its constantly getting raised that they have to answer it probably tells you it was a mistake to go so far with it in a fanbase that’s pretty fickle.

I go back to the Kelvin films, they acknowledged those films take place in a completely separate universe and yet fans were still bothered by so many of the changes, especially how advanced it feels compared to TOS. Now you supposedly have a show that takes place in the old universe and that seems to have just as many changes as the Kelvin did is not surprising the same issues wouldn’t prop up?

And it seems to bother a lot of fans, certainly online because every fan website I go to from this one to various others its argued about weekly.

April 19, 2018 8:52 pm

Tiger2

But its Bryan Fuller who came up with a lot of these ideas in the first place. I get the other show runners may not see it as important as they were pretty new to Trek but they were only following Fuller’s lead.

And I’m not knocking him for just trying different things but Roddenberry was smart to do something different in another era where his ideas could flourish. It looks like Fuller probably would’ve changed it more if he was still in charge but that’s just a guess on my part.

April 19, 2018 8:46 pm

TUP

Its not valid to argue against facts. Thats like saying “well the earth is flat until I go to space and see it for myself.”

Its prime.

April 19, 2018 8:52 am

James

OK TUP. It’s Prime. At least until it isn’t. Like the writers who said Khan wasn’t in STID. Until he was.

It’s valid to argue against so called facts if they don’t make sense. This is the foundation of Science and reasoning.

April 19, 2018 11:00 am

TUP

James, saying the producers are lying because you dont like their creative choices is not about science and reasoning. Its banging your head against the wall because you dont like the choice.

The only way the issue of Prime is comparable to Khan in STID is if Discovery actually is NOT in the Prime Universe and the writers know it and are lying for no reason. Which would be stupid.

In fact, if they are lying for a GOOD reason, such as a story that explains it, thats fine. Thats their creative prerogative.

But its Prime.

If I said I thought the 4th episode of TNG season 3 was not in the Prime Universe just “because” and argued that point everytime the subject of TNG came up, then it would not only be annoyingly factually incorrect, but just silly.

Its Prime. Even if I hated it, its still prime.

April 19, 2018 1:35 pm

Azurian

I said it before, I honestly do like the Discovery Enterprise’s look, but at the same time I’m bothered she isn’t the classic TOS Enterprise. Especially given them constantly telling us it’s in the Prime Universe, aka the original timeline. I really do not buy that the Discovery producers needed to modernize the looks of Star Trek, especially when Orville uses 90s TNGesque sets and pulling superb ratings. And how Axanar used the classic Constitution-class with Prelude and making it look like she belonged. So they really did the unnecessary with all these bells and whistles. My only hope is that the Enterprise will be mentioned needing a refit, the last time we see her in Discovery, and it results in the true TOS Constitution for the 5-year mission.

As for the Klingons, that still greatly bothers me as a fan of the Klingons. Especially with their ships. Part of me really wants to see them connect to TOS, but at this point I’m just wanting them to just admit this is a new timeline and just end the controversy.

April 18, 2018 7:13 am

PEB

I think we can easily argue the “superb” ratings of Orville but you also have to remember this, Orville was going for that aesthetic. It was a part of what they wanted to be from the start. That doesn’t mean it works for Trek. I feel that a lot of fans would have seen it as “same old stuff.” Axanar, again had a very specific goal in mind as do all the fan productions. I totally get the argument for wanting the classic aesthetic, but I also completely understand why they went for a modern approach if Trek is supposed to be the story of us in the future.

April 18, 2018 2:57 pm

Wildcat30dc

Let’s remember that when Star Trek Phase II was going to be the follow up TV show in the 1970s, they were going to update the Enterprise look.

If the original creators were ok with updating the Enterprise is the 70s, why is it so bad to do so in 2018, with our 4K TVs?

Even so, the Discovery Enterprise is remarkably faithful to the original. It is clear the producers are trying to be accurate. They need to satisfy original Trek fans and appeal to a new generation of fan. It’s a hard job, but Trek will die if it doesn’t appeal to the next generation.

April 18, 2018 7:42 am

TUP

The Enterprise even changed from film to film (TVH to TFF for example). We allow for changes like that because its creative allowance. But I think the internet takes a minor complaint from a minority segment and blows it up.

April 18, 2018 8:35 am

Elvis_Shatner

Creative allowance to some degree but still, the refits made to the ship over the various movies occurred in subsequent order of succession though.

Claiming that Discovery’s visual changes are Prime canon is akin to claiming that the events of Star Trek V occurred during the Five Year Mission and that the 1701-A’s design was actually the TOS Enterprise, but simply updated visually to fit a modern aesthetic. Can’t buy it…

April 18, 2018 6:26 pm

Robo

Whether it was legal or creative, I love the design. If the actual Star Trek was made today, I’d hope the style was more in line with that brief shot than JJland or the rest of Disco. I just hope they don’t jack up the unis and interior. Just lose the Starfleet officers walking around in shorts like they’re on the set of a 1958 Coppertone ad. One of the worst shots in franchise history even if it was the pilot. Since they’re doubling down on the hologram nonsense that is out of place on a late 24th century show, perhaps they could use the “speakers” or whatnot on the Cagerprise’s consoles and captain’s chair to show mini holograms of messages, ships, star systems, etc.

April 18, 2018 7:47 am

HN4

The novelization of the Star Trek: The Motion Picture written by Roddenberry had holo coms. In the book Kirk uses it to speak to an admiral before he goes to the Enterprise. So you’re pretty wrong about it being nonsense.

April 18, 2018 8:34 am

Robo

We both know that, for better or worse, only what’s shown on screen counts. And sometimes not even then. Even in the Kelvinverse, which is significantly more advanced, this technology does not exist. In fact, when Robeau sees the 25th century Romulan technology of Spock’s holohead it’s clear that he’s amazed by the technology and asks “where are you from?” Even if one were to accept that the timelines match prior to the incursion, the interactive holograms don’t fit at all.

April 18, 2018 9:57 am

Tiger2

Yeah holograms doesn’t belong anywhere in the 23rd century. It really feels like a 24th century tech. Another reason why you would never know this show was anywhere close to TOS period.

April 18, 2018 2:46 pm

Robo

The sad thing is, I really think I’d like the show more if it were set post Nemesis. Everytime they use something TOS related it comes off as more of like pandering than a tribute let alone not replaceable by an original creation.

It comes off as very two dimensional, with story development just taking us from one “OMG!” moment to the next. They make a huge deal about casting a black woman as the lead, which let’s be honest it is. But then her character could’ve been played by a white dude or an Andorian hermaphrodite and it wouldn’t change one thing. Hopefully in season two, now completely Fuller-free, the characters will be fleshed out more and the stories won’t be chock full of plotholes.

April 18, 2018 4:12 pm

Tiger2

I actually agree with you Burnham could be fleshed out better. In fact one of the things I wish they did more was show her Vulcan side. They sort of allude to it but its not much than her sounding like a computer at times. I mean she lived on Vulcan most of her life, I wanted to see more conflict of a human who lived there for so long and reconciling that with illogical humans again. It just feels like all that potential of what the character could’ve been is already gone.

And I would like the show more if it was post-Nemesis as well, not because I want a show in that period, but because THIS show would just make a lot more sense in that era. Everything we see on Discovery would fit just fine in that period.

And yes I don’t like the fan pandering stuff either which is why I originally rolled my eyes when I heard Harry Mudd and Sarek would be on the show. BUT I will say Mudd has won me over and I wouldn’t mind seeing him again. I’m not against Sarek being there until the whole foster dad bit came into play but I have accepted it at this point.

But yes I HOPE this show can just feel like its own thing in time once the Enterprise warps out next season.

April 19, 2018 2:11 am

HN4

Oh give it up. Even the TOS cartoon had a Holodeck on the enterprise. There’s an episode of TOS where Spock even recognizes a hologram that was being used by aliens. Hell we have simple holograms right now in 2018.

How the hell could they not exist in 23rd century?????????

April 18, 2018 4:12 pm

ML31

It’s fantasy, HN4. They still reference the eugenics wars of the 1990’s. Did that ever happen? It wasn’t in the papers…

April 19, 2018 11:28 am

HN4

Roddenberry wrote it, you calling Roddenberry a liar.

April 18, 2018 4:08 pm

kmart

Everybody is probably justified in calling GR a liar, from the ‘Harlan had my Scotty selling drugs’ lie he repeated over and over for years to how he spun the creation of the TNG bible to cut Gerrold out of getting proper credit for it. As for the TMP novelization, that was his attempt to get more of his vision on record, which is reflected in some improvements on scenes in the film and a lot of digressions. If you can spare 30 bucks, RETURN TO TOMORROW, a book on the making of TMP, is worth reading, though it does not do a warts&all recounting, and definitely implies that GR was not up to managing things, though that the fault on the film was probably as much Paramount’s, given their ridiculous faith in the original VFX team.

April 19, 2018 5:22 am

Wildcat30dc

I’m ok that the 80s metal head Klingon look is gone. Why dust off the same wigs and grey armour for the upteenth time? We’ve had that since TMP/The Search for Spock era. Same uniform and wigs were done to death through DS9. Enough already.

April 18, 2018 7:50 am

PEB

My EXACT thoughts. I look at the tech and say, if Trek is supposed to be OUR future, it’s just weird to me that people want to see consoles with jellybean buttons when we use phones and tablets, computers and laptops with touch screen. We have VR headsets. This is all common tech today in 2018 so even if we had another great world war, why wouldn’t the tech of our future expand on what we currently use? At that point they’re using the aesthetic for nostalgia’s sake and Trek at that point no longer feels like our future. How ridiculous would it be if TOS was made with that aesthetic and they did a time travel episode to the year 2018 where our tech looks much more sophisticated than theirs? There would be a real problem with that in my opinion.

April 18, 2018 8:11 am

TUP

I agree although for me personally if I was in charge of Disco, I’d try not to use tech that can be a crutch. No holodeck is GREAT news.

But I would not have holographic communications. It just seems silly as a plot device to me and ramps down the intensity of a scene when the actors can effectively be in the same room. it seems too “easy”.

TOS always seemed like this amazing tech that was both awe-inspiring AND on the verge of falling apart. It made space flight seem dangerous. Its never seemed dangerous since even when they actively try to replicate that feeling (VOY, ENT).

But there is no difference between the bulky PADD that Kirk used in TOS and the iPad varient used now. Its the same piece of tech just using modern visuals.

In 300 years we could very well fly through space from the comfort of Earth with VR tech but that doesnt work for Star Trek. So I think they went a bit too far in Discovery with some things, mostly the holograms really and the size and splendor.

One reason the TOS films are so good, especially when Meyer came on board, was his desire to make the ships like Subs, make them feel claustrophic,. It adds intensity and stress to even mundane scenes and makes you feel that, despite the incredible tech, that there is still danger in space flight.

April 18, 2018 8:33 am

HN4

The novelization of the Star Trek: The Motion Picture written by Roddenberry had holographic communications. Read the book.

April 18, 2018 8:38 am

TUP

Well, that’s not relevant since books are not canon and even if they were it doesnt change my point.

April 18, 2018 11:28 am

HN4

It holds more weight since Roddenberry wrote it. I wouldn’t be surprised if the writers read the book.

April 18, 2018 4:13 pm

Tiger2

Books aren’t canon man. Never have been. And I suffered through the movie, I can’t suffer through the book too.

April 18, 2018 2:48 pm

Danpaine

TUP, if you haven’t already done so, I suggest you look up a film called “The Enemy Below,” which is a submarine film from 1957 starring Robert Mitchum. It was what TOS’ “Balance Of Terror” was based on. I found it very enjoyable.

April 18, 2018 9:10 am

PEB

TUP, I see what you’re saying about holographic communications. I look at it as a production time and money saver. I have a feeling it’s why DS9 did it as well. You didn’t have to show another ship bridge and could film an actor in the same space as another and have them work off of each other better than the view screen at times. It shouldn’t be used all the time that’s for sure and I wouldn’t mind it if there was some event that happened in an episode or with the tech in general that made them get rid of it. I just feel it’s the natural progression. I mean with the rate we’re going, there will be holo communication in place of facetime and at that point view screens will begin to look outdated. It’s the trap that Trek falls in because of our own technological advancements.

I also really miss the submarine feel that Trek had but then at the same time, when I think logically about it, I don’t know if it’s plausible that it would feel cramped on a newer vessel of that era. Maybe an older ship, definitely but…I don’t know, it’s just my opinion really.

April 18, 2018 1:33 pm

TUP

I dont know. Is the cost of rendering the Hologram less than the cost of filming an actor in front of a generic “wall” to represent a bridge or whatever?

I think production people naturally want to push things forward. But I really dislike it.

April 19, 2018 8:51 am

HN4

No one wants to watch two people using Skype. It’s boring.

April 19, 2018 9:01 am

kmart

Tech is not strictly a straight-ahead, always improving thing. If it were, we wouldn’t be having a minor vinyl record renaissance right now, and a filmmaker like Nolan wouldn’t still be using miniatures. Old tech is not necessarily inferior tech, and there are Trek ways to justify this too (the Reeves-Stevens’ first book, MEMORY PRIME, ‘explains’ why the consoles on the Enterprise bridge are so bulky, because the size makes them resistant to overloads, and you can invoke similar solutions for other aesthetic issues.) Just because we have VR headsets, does that mean it is preferable to a face-to-face meeting, where you can get a better sense of a person?

Also, too-advanced tech is dramatically a story-worsener a lot of the time. I pitched a replication-is-bad-for-spacetime idea in the TNG era, mainly because I hate magic-box/something-for-nothing-tech dramatically, and I think the warp-drive-is-bad-for-space they wound up doing a few years later was a step in the right direction, but of course they just HAD to backspace over that afterward.

April 19, 2018 6:38 am

Bassmaster22

Has everything to do with selling new models and toys. These shows are hour long commercials for merchandise. If they thought they could get away with just showing it flying through space for an hour without a story or crew, they would.

Buckle up because there will be five more variants of this ship in your lifetime and a plethora of merchandise for your purchasing pleasure.

April 18, 2018 8:09 am

James

Trek aint Star Wars, there isn’t that much value in the merch.

April 18, 2018 1:34 pm

DPrescott

Hmm, sounds like a retraction to me. I don’t buy it, Update, by all means and with sensitivity. An overhaul… was not needed.

April 18, 2018 9:27 am

ML31

“CBS TV Studios does, in fact, have the right to use the U.S.S. Enterprise ship design from the past TV series, and are not legally required to make changes. The changes in the ship design were creative ones, made to utilize 2018’s VFX technology.”

This and other amazing insights can be found in the pages of “DUH” magazine.

April 18, 2018 9:53 am

TUP

Very insightful comment. Care to explain why it wasn’t “duh” obvious to the ship designers of Discovery?

April 18, 2018 11:27 am

Greg Cooper

Pure garbage!

April 18, 2018 10:06 am

TUP

Which one of you complained to the CBSC??

April 18, 2018 11:43 am

Ross

Ross What some people don’t think about is that back in the 60s TV shows where not given alot of money to do the best they could sometimes and SIFI shows suffered the most! And most of the time the budgets were cut more with every new season. So you can’t expect everything to look like it did when the show first came on, because of course they only had a limited amount of money to work with and they had to be creative to make futuristic vessels and clothes, uniforms, weapons and equipment. Of course you have to make the new things look somewhat like the originals that’s why the main shape of the Enterprise is simular. I loved the redesign of the Enterprise in Star Trek TMP, but I thought the uniforms were horrid! Also I think the Enterprise in Discovery looks awesome!!!

April 18, 2018 5:40 pm

Michael

They still need to figure out a path from this Enterprise to the one we’re familiar with from the original series. Battle damage plus budget cuts, perhaps?

April 18, 2018 8:06 pm

Martin

An Important Question I Have For The Fans… Before I pose my question… I love how this article has exploded with 300 comments. Looking at the articles around it, it’s clear THIS article, whether divisive or not, creates a passionate reaction amongst fans of the franchise. It shows the subject of continuity matters to some and is worth discussing. Last night, I finally unwrapped The Last Jedi and sat down to watch it on my humble home cinema… it blew me away, the scope, the message, the integrity (while still having plenty of humor, action and insane sfx) but one thing dawned on me watching it… Although it was set in the Star Wars ‘future’… while updating the ships and costumes, they still had 1970s ‘flick switches’ on the newest ships… sets with bold colours, black, whites and reds, preserving not just a 70s look… but preserving a style that the director, production team and Disney execs presumably consider important to the Star Wars universe. And it works, they enjoy new creative ideas within the confines of a familiar aesthetic and design-logic. It’s taking all I’ve got right now not to use caps-lock for my question: Why when fans of the 50 year legacy of Star Trek say ‘How dare Discovery change the Enterprise? Or before it, questioned JJ’s choices, or ask why Discovery visually reboots a beloved alien race who’s inconsistencies have already been explained? Basically, why instead of building on the rich 50 year tapestry, they instead seem ashamed of Star Trek and try to reinvent the wheel, changes for changes sake…’ immediately cruel comments appear saying “Get Over it! You can’t have the Enterprise on the screen in 2018 looking like it did” “Get Over it! Nobody wants embarassing clunky 1960s buttons on a ship design” “Get with the times. Visual reboot or not, if they say it’s Prime Universe then it is!”. And I find myself then apologising for myself, for my instincts, for what feels right and wrong. So I start to think maybe it’s just me, maybe continuity doesn’t matter, maybe I need to suspend belief more… but then last night, I’m watching The Last Jedi and I saw that tacky black plastic flick switch on The First Order’s latest ship (The Empire) and I realised how different the attitudes to the two seperate franchises were. Is it because Star Wars is more popular and their numbers are stronger, that fans aren’t afraid to fight for consistency, continuity and the studios know to preserve the style, the music, the visuals – and maybe because Star Trek is less sure of itself, maybe seen as the geeky little brother, always trying to prove itself, so it reinvents itself, tries desperately to be cool, and in doing so, looses sight of it’s own magic. Continuity for me makes the universe richer, more believable and the escapism I get from watching sci-fi or fantasy adventure feels even more pronounced. But when I see heartless change for changes sake, it does angry me, I feel like the creators are capitalising on a brand name but not really caring for it. I find the writing on Discovery to be dire. I used to be was proud that MY TREK inspired scientists and physicists, I’m not sure the magic mushroom drive will have that effect on viewers of this generation. The cone headed Klingons, with their bad prosthetics, with an embarassing set of human nostrils on show next to their new ones, sounding like they have a mouth full of marbles. And the ships, looking like they belong in the 25th century. And the blue tint, everything cast in blue. As if to say ‘strip the blue back, and we are naked and have nothing of value’ so let’s sex it all up with blue grading and lense flares. Why does Star Wars stand up for itself and WIN but Star Trek seems so embarassed of itself and it’s historic and cultural contributions? I realised last night that old aesthetics do work and damn, can look very sexy. What would happen if a new director came along to the Star Wars franchise and gave Chewie’s race a make-over or they changed all the windows on the Millenium Falcon to portholes and add a red go-faster racing stripe? Why are Star Wars fans allowed to be passionate while Star Trek fans have no right to preserve anything they love without being called names? I never cared much for Star Wars, not when I have my Trek… but Nu-Trek hates itself and that doesn’t inspire me to be a fan. I really can’t wait for the last of the new SW Trilogy films. I’m excited to see a quality production which cares and as imtegrity. Meanwhile, I couldn’t care less whether Lorca… Read more »

April 19, 2018 12:41 am

bsan

Here here! Well said. New Star Trek is ashamed of it’s own visual history. Stars Wars does it well. New Doctor Who also embraces its own visual history, and wrote an excellent story arc which explained the look of the original Cybermen.

April 19, 2018 4:10 am

HN4

Star Trek should be ashamed. TOS looked awful. TMP was an attempt to fix it.

April 19, 2018 9:04 am

Martin

A GREAT example bsan.

April 19, 2018 9:28 am

TUP

Star Wars is a film franchise.

If you want to be critical of Star Trek for updating the look of TOS in TMP, fine. But Star Wars had ground-breaking effects from Day One.

Its also not based in reality. Its fantasy.

April 20, 2018 8:47 am

kmart

Martin,
Normally I post at some length, but here I’m just gonna say I agree with you on pretty much all your points. The question is really whether TPTB are simply insecure about staying with the established aesthetic (or variation on same) or are more concerned with leaving their own personal stamp on the show, but the answer either way is what we’re getting, which isn’t appropriate, so far as I see things.

April 19, 2018 5:28 am

Martin

Insecure or ego-ride, a very good analysis kmart. Like you say, which ever one… it doesn’t work. I know I’ve harped on enough about The Last Jedi, but I can’t remember the last time I saw a sexier looking film. And yet the same visual faithfulness on a Trek film or show wouldn’t work apparently… awesome sets and beautiful technology… everything looked so damn sexy and yet was entirely ‘retro’. And yet, up on the screen it worked perfectly. I’m sorry but the next time I hear somebody say nobody wants to see the original enterprise or you can’t do this, or you can’t do that – I can no longer humor it.

April 19, 2018 9:33 am

Dr C

I think you hit the nail on the head when you said:

“instead of building on the rich 50 year tapestry, they instead seem ashamed of Star Trek”

Trek ain’t Wars and will never be that cool sadly (a fact I lament greatly).

And I have much the same feeling re: instinct and feeling apologetic for it… thanks for your comment :)

April 19, 2018 6:19 am

Martin

My pleasure Dr C. Thank YOU for telling me you agree, when you feel a little like you’re going insane… the validation means a lot! It’s so awesome to know others feel the same way.

April 19, 2018 9:35 am

Lurker

Excellent post Martin.
Something has definitely been lost in translation.

April 19, 2018 7:32 am

Martin

Thanks Lurker!

April 19, 2018 9:36 am

TUP

There is a difference with Star Wars in that its science fantasy and so their sort of grungy, retro future look is part of it. There isnt going to be the sense of “why hasn’t humanity evolved” like there would be for Star Trek which isnt a galaxy far far away, its us.

Saying that, the backlash to Discovery would be worse if it looked identical to TOS. But I do think they went too far in some respects like the holographs and the big and shiny.

April 19, 2018 8:50 am

Martin

Cheep cheep

April 19, 2018 9:37 am

Martin

Thanks guys. *bows*
I had hoped I’d have a response from the ‘get over it’ crowd but they suddenly fall silent when you ask them to reason and not insult.

April 19, 2018 9:23 am

ML31

You said a lot of things I agree with as well, Martin. Disney seems to know what they have with Star Wars. CBS does not. And your like that STD people seem like they are ashamed of doing Star Trek really resonates. It totally feels like they want their own stamp on it rather than embrace what was already established. In fact, I think it easier and lazier of them to ignore it all and use only the elements they feel work for them than it would be to accept the established universe and write something that would work well within it.

April 19, 2018 11:40 am

Danpaine

Well played, Martin. Well played. I especially like the way you finished it – “…I’m excited to see a quality production which cares and as imtegrity. Meanwhile, I couldn’t care less whether Lorca comes back or Simon Pegg writes a script or who they’ve cast as Pike or whether Tarintino directs or whether Burnum does next.” I feel exactly the same way. So far, I believe DISC to be quite forgettable, and disrespectful of the 50 years that preceeded it.

My copy of TLJ should be waiting for me when I get home tonight, too –

April 19, 2018 9:36 am

Mirror Galt

Yep, all the weak rationalizations for Discovery fall apart in the face of Disney Star Wars – which puts tremendous effort in grounding the experience in the aesthetic traditions of the franchise. They even made their cartoon show, Rebels, replete with 1970s fashion and design. The short answer to your questions is that Kathleen Kennedy is much smarter and savvier than the likes of Alex Kurtzman.

April 19, 2018 12:24 pm

Markm

Keep in mind that Star Wars is set in a universe a long time ago and far far away. Our Star Trek is supposed to be set in our future. Star Wars is not immune to making changes. They have made changes to their movies by retroactively adding cgi to the original 3 movies.

Some arguments have been made to make it post voyager. However, keep in mind on TNG they didn’t t show allot of technology we have available today (such as wifi). So we would just be kicking the can down the road.

I think it’s not unreasonable to update the storytellling and technology to reflect a more realistic view of the future as we move forward. If they made a Star Trek set in the late 22nd century 50 years from now I wouldn’t expect them to retain the Enterprise (the show) technology and astestics.

April 19, 2018 1:29 pm

Mirror Galt

Of course, the Klingons don’t just look different, they act different too. Our rebooted Klingons seem as if they’re under the influence of Valium and Vicodin. (Maybe it’s a downer variant of Ketracel-white, to be revealed in season 2?)

April 19, 2018 12:53 pm

Bob

So this means, when someone whants to do a movie that plays in the 60’s we should see cell phones and the internet and todays cars because we live in a modern world now and stupid producers think a stupid audience would expect to see that.

Right?

April 19, 2018 2:30 pm

DIGINON

You are aware that TOS is set about 200 years in the future, right? So it’s not completely unreasonable to expect it to look more modern than the present, certainly more modern than the 60’s. Otherwise, what you’d be doing would be a TV show about the production of a sci-fi show during the 60’s.

April 20, 2018 4:08 am

ML31

And space ships flying at warp speed with artificial gravity and what not is not “futureistic” enough for you?

April 20, 2018 7:52 am

DIGINON

The original comment suggested that Trek was a period piece set in the past. It’s not. It’s supposed to be set in the future. Nobody is suggesting they should drop artificial gravity or warp speed. And they haven’t. Basically, most of what they’ve done is update the interface to these technologies.

April 20, 2018 1:13 pm

ML31

No, the comment suggested (sarcastically) that if someone wants to put a modern take on a movie set in a certain era that it was OK to use elements that take the viewer out of place of what they know of that era.

April 20, 2018 1:40 pm

Trex

The Enterprise is DSC looks great! A perfect visual update of the original. People complain just to complain. There’s nothing wrong with the way it looks.

April 19, 2018 5:00 pm

Doug

And by “updating”, they really mean “pissing on accepted canon”, and in the process, pissing off fans.

Star Trek is nothing more than a cash cow to the studios; adding to that, ST:D and “All Access” are nothing more than major flops…yet they’re throwing good money after bad in an effort to kill Trek off once and for all.

April 19, 2018 5:03 pm

HN4

All TV shows are made to make money. I really don’t get this Cash Cow crap.

April 19, 2018 7:20 pm

TUP

Yes, Im not sure how “cash cow” and “we dont care if its good” work together.